The Franciscan order, as has been already said, added our Lady’s conception to the number of the feasts observed by themselves. They celebrated it everywhere where they had a church of their own, and also in Avignon and Rome during the residence of the popes. Other orders followed their example—namely, the Benedictines, Cistercians, Carmelites, all of which had houses in Rome,[563] and so, since there were many churches belonging to these orders in Rome, it might well seem as if the Roman Church herself kept the festival, all the more since the popes knew of it and tolerated the practice. In Sixtus IV. (1471-1484), a Franciscan ascended the Papal throne, and he it was who finally took the decisive step in the direction of recognition instead of toleration. On the 27th February 1477[564] he published the Constitution “Cum præ excelsa,” in which he granted indulgences on the feast. In particular he granted to all those who on this day recited the office composed by the Papal notary, Leonardo Nogaroli of Verona, and assisted at Mass and the canonical hours, the same indulgences which his predecessors granted for Corpus Christi. In this way the feast was adopted into the diocese of Rome, and made its way into the Calendar, Breviary and Missal, but only as a purely ecclesiastical feast. It must also be observed that no advance was made in the doctrine concerned, for the pope in his decree speaks of a Conceptio immaculatæ, or, as he expresses himself in another place, prælibatæ virginis, not of an immaculata conceptio.
This was not the only official act of Sixtus IV. in favour of the feast. In 1479 he built a chapel in old St Peter’s, which he dedicated and endowed in honour of our Lady’s conception and in honour of the Franciscan saints, Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua. In 1483, however, he was compelled to forbid, by a special constitution, the supporters and opponents of the doctrine of Mary’s exemption from original sin to call each other heretics. This proves that the strife between the two parties had then waxed warm. Even in Germany there were bitter contentions concerning the point in question in Frankfurt, Marburg, Heidelberg, and at Bern in Switzerland.
By the decree of Sixtus IV., in 1477, the office for the feast was finally prescribed for the diocese of Rome as a duplex, but not for other dioceses; these were free as before to adopt it or not. Clement VIII. raised it to a duplex majus. Clement IX., added an octave, and Clement XI., by a decree of 6th December 1708, prescribed it for the whole Church.[565] It had already been observed in Spain as a regular holy day of obligation, for Philip IV. petitioned Innocent X. for it and the pope had granted his request in a constitution of 10th November 1644.[566] It was only in 1854 that it became, through the zeal of Pius IX., a holy day of obligation for the whole Catholic world.
The steps in regard to this feast taken by Rome were, as we have seen, separated from one another by considerable periods of time. With regard to the significance of the feast, however, in spite of the declaration of the Council of Trent, a policy of delay and laissez-faire was maintained. The feast remained a simple festum conceptionis, and the idea of the immaculata conceptio did not receive outward expression, except that Paul V. permitted the recitation on all free Saturdays of an officium conceptionis B.M.V., in which the invitatorium is, “Immaculatam conceptionem Mariæ virginis celebremus.”
Pius IX. had a new office drawn up which he prescribed for use on the 25th September 1863, in which the idea contained in the invitatorium is expressed beyond all doubt. Hymns expressing the same idea were inserted, and the bull “Ineffabilis” was drawn upon for some of the lections, while for others the preference was given to the homilies of the later Greek writers. The pope’s letter elevating the feast to the rank of a holy day of obligation for all Christendom received an enthusiastic reception everywhere. The rank of the feast was not increased. It was only by Leo XIII. that it was placed on an equality with the three chief festivals of the year.
In tracing out the long process of development by which this feast passed from Byzantium by Lower Italy to Normandy and England, and from thence throughout the entire West, our attention has been drawn especially to the conduct of the Roman See. Passaglia endeavours by every means to magnify the part it played, and to date its intervention as far back as possible. Still he is finally obliged to own that the Roman Church was not the first to pay a special cultus to the Mother of God as conceived without original sin. But, he adds, she has done everything during the space of five hundred years[567] for the glorification of this feast and for the spread of the doctrine which forms its basis. It is difficult to see what is gained by magnifying the part of the Roman See at the cost of historical truth. Others regard with satisfaction the fact that Rome in no way pressed matters forwards. In a question so much debated, Rome could not have adopted a better course than to wait until the conviction of all Christendom, in so far as it was interested in the question, had arrived at maturity. The Immaculate Conception had been the dominant doctrine for a long period, and wanted nothing but the formal approbation of the teaching church.
6. The Lesser Feasts of Our Lady
While the number of lesser feasts of our Lady according to the existing Roman rite is very considerable, yet only a few of them come much before the public, and the history of the most of them affords no points of general interest. We shall therefore confine ourselves to the following:—
1. The Feast of the Name of Mary owes its origin to the devotion of the faithful, and was first authorised by the Apostolic See for the diocese of Cuença, in Spain, in 1513. It was abolished by Pius V., but re-established by Sixtus V., and finally prescribed by Innocent XI. to be observed by the whole Church on the Sunday after the Nativity of our Lady. This was done in 1683, on the occasion of the deliverance of Vienna from the Turks.[568]
Maria, or Miriam, is the Greek form of Miryam, a name over the etymology of which many opinions were held in antiquity. Eusebius explains it to mean “illuminatrix una vel illuminans eos, aut smyrna maris vel stella maris.”[569] St Peter Chrysologus and St John Damascene derive it from the Syrian mar (feminine martha), lady, which appears also in the Roman breviary along with the other explanation, “stella maris.” In the Middle Ages this was the usual, and even yet is the favourite, explanation. O. Bardenhewer maintains that the only derivation permissible is from מָרָא, fat or stout, in the sense of the imposing or stately one. Those to whom Bardenhewer’s derivation does not commend itself will be glad to hear that Professor Macke has had the happy thought to refer back to the first bearer of the name, Miryam, the sister of Moses, and to derive the names of both brother and sister from the Egyptian. In Egyptian it would be: Meri jom, which would be equivalent to Friend of Water, or Bride of the Sea, and so approaches more to the meaning of Stella Maris.