JESUS LOVES HIS MOTHER AND SO DO I! From Fr Jim Rosenthal
August 2024
As Anglicans believe that Jesus was both human and God the Son, Mary is accorded honour as the theotokos, a Koiné Greek term that means "God-bearer" or "one who gives birth to God"1 However, some individuals may hold the feast of the Immaculate Conception as a pious, optional belief and December 8th - the feast of the Conception of Mary is in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer calendar. At Christ the King the observance is noted at Benediction in the Divine Praises!
Anglican Marian theology is the summation of the doctrines and beliefs of Anglicanism concerning Mary, mother of Jesus. As In Common Worship:
Further, August 15 has come to be widely celebrated as a principal feast in honour of Saint Mary the Virgin with Scripture readings, collect, and proper preface.
slife.org. The name of the feast is the Assumption or Dormition of Our Lady.
In 1922 the creation of a new statue of Our Lady of Walsingham under the aegis of Father Hope Patten, reignited Anglican interest in a revival of the pre-Reformation pilgrimage. From the early 1930s Walsingham became a centre of Anglican as well as Catholic Marian pilgrimage. This developed into the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in 1938.
Present
Mary has a new prominence in Anglicanism through the liturgical renewals of the 20th century. In most Anglican prayer books, Mary is again mentioned by name in the liturgical prayers. Further, August 15 has come to be widely celebrated as a principal feast in honour of Saint Mary the Virgin with Scripture readings, collect, and proper preface. Other ancient feasts associated with Mary have also been renewed, and liturgical resources offered for use on these festivals. Marian devotions such as the Rosary, Angelus, and Regina Coeli are most commonly associated with the Anglo-Catholic and High Church movements within Anglicanism.
An Anglo-Catholic manual, Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book: A Book of Devotion for members of the Episcopal Church, first published in 1947, includes a section containing devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This includes the Rosary, the four seasonal Marian antiphons, the Memorare, and litanies of the Blessed Virgin and Our Lady of Sorrows. A Revised Edition was published in 1967, and the book remains in print with Holy Cross Publications. The Anglo-Catholic Prayer book, a classic, was published in an entirely new edition in 2000, and it also includes a section of prayers to the Blessed Virgin, including to her Immaculate Conception and Assumption.
Anglican theologian Hugh Montefiore, former Bishop of Birmingham, while denying the immaculate conception and the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, says “Christians rightly honour and venerate her as one of the great saints of God. God had signally honoured her by choosing her to be the mother of Jesus.”
Other Anglicans respect and honour Mary because of the special religious significance that she has within Christianity as the mother of Jesus Christ. This honour and respect is termed veneration .
Anglicans recognize Mary as an example of holiness, faith and obedience for all Christians; and that Mary can be seen as a prophetic figure of the Church.
In Salfords we have the Lady Chapel, an image of Walsingham, a Della Robia in back of church and the large statue of mother and child with candles and a simple icon of Mary and Nicholas with Christ the King. I am a priest associate of the Shrine in Walsingham Norfolk. Pilgrimage soon?