Salus Populi Romani
Fr Jamie McMorrin, Assistant Priest at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh writes this week's reflection and Emmet Dooly of SPUC writes on discovering authentic love. Welcome!
There’s a great deal to be learned from moments of crisis and our instinctive reactions to them. As our places of worship and wider society begin to return to something like normal, it seems important that the experience of the past year - the multiple challenges of the Coronavirus and our pastoral response to it - do not pass by without careful reflection.
The response of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has been decidedly Marian. This is quite in keeping with the character of his Pontificate: his first act as Pope was to visit the shrine of Our Lady, ‘Salus Populi Romani’ (‘Protectress of the Roman People’) in the Basilica of St Mary Major, an image to which he returns before and after every foreign, Papal trip.
Little surprise, then, that in the face of the Coronavirus, Pope Francis turned instinctively to Mary: on the 11th of March last year, he composed two new prayers in her honour, invoking her under the title of ‘Health of the Sick,’ and entrusting the whole Church to her protection.
More than a year later, at the beginning of the Marian month of May, he has recently asked us to pray the Rosary every day for an end to the pandemic and the resumption of ordinary human activities, asking Mary in a particular way for the graces of “firmness in faith, perseverance in service and constancy in prayer.”
This response finds echoes throughout the history of the Church. The image of Mary, Salus Populi Romani, venerated so frequently by Pope Francis, traces its origins back to another pandemic: the outbreak of Bubonic plague which killed some 100 million people in Europe during the late sixth century and threatened Rome in the year 590, even claiming the life of the Pope (Pelagius II) himself. In attempt to bring an end to the suffering of the people, his successor, St Gregory the Great, processed through the streets of the city, holding aloft this ancient image of Our Lady while praying ‘Kyrie Eleison!’
It might be that in this litany of fervent prayers are found the primitive origins of what later centuries would call the Litany of Loreto, where, among the titles applied to Mary, is ‘Salus Infirmorum’, usually translated as ‘health of the sick.’ It’s a title which can be traced back even prior to St Gregory to St Ephraim the Syrian who, in his fourth century hymns in honour of the Virgin, calls Mary “health itself … robust health for those who have recourse in her” and, in an image of which Pope Francis would surely approve, even a “hospital for sinners.”
Throughout the health crises of the Middle Ages, the faithful continued to turn to Mary. The origins of the ‘Hail Mary’ itself are associated with the Black Death when, in the fourteenth century and as the contagion brought a stark reminder of their own mortality, the faithful began to add to the salutations of the Angel Gabriel and St Elizabeth, a petition that Mary would pray for them in a particular way “at the hour of our death” – which, as public health crises remind us all too vividly, might come sooner than we expect.
Here in Scotland, following the Pope’s example, at the beginning of this year and following the announcement that public worship was once again to be suspended, my own Archbishop asked the people of our Archdiocese to pray the Memorare every day. It didn’t escape the notice of some that the churches reopened on the 25th of March, the Feast of Our Lady’s Annunciation: a little sign, maybe, that our prayers to Mary had not gone unanswered.
A reminder also, perhaps, that ‘salus’ is not limited to our physical health, but has a wider, more holistic sense that can also be translated as ‘salvation.’ Although our Lord seems to have had a special love for those suffering from disease, when he talks about the need of the sick for a doctor, he wasn’t thinking only about physical illness, but primarily about fallen humanity’s need for his salvation.
Thus, when, united with Peter, we go to Mary with the varied needs of our human life – physical, yes, but also spiritual, mental, social and economic – her response is always the same: to send us to Jesus, and to the deep healing that only his grace can bring.
In our post-pandemic examination of conscience, then, this reality, rather than any public enquiry, is surely the true measure of our own personal response: the extent to which we’ve come, individually and as a Church, to a more sincere appreciation of the centrality of Christ, a more grateful love for his saving Sacraments and a more obedient submission to his Lordship over history and our own lives.
Mary, help of the sick and sign of salvation: pray for us.
Fr Jamie McMorrin is an Assistant Priest at St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh.
The Crombie Burn Series on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, by Fr Aidan Nichols OP, continues with Part 2: The Prologue.
Authentic Love
Written By Emmet Dooley
As I sit down and begin to write this article concerning chastity and the theology of the body I am first and foremost grateful for having heard the Catholic Church’s teaching on human sexuality proposed in such an attractive and courageous way. When I heard it my entire being responded with a definite YES!
Yes, this is what I had wanted, this is what I was searching for during all the many nights out in the pubs and clubs of Ireland where I am from. Little did I know I was searching for love in all the wrong places and in the wrong faces.
I had my first little girlfriend when I was twelve, and in my final year in primary school I saved my pocket money and bought this girl - who I liked more than anyone - a teddy bear in a pram on our school tour and said 'I like you’ in a very awkward cringeworthy way. However it was destined to be Denise Bergin in the end who was my first kiss and her name is forever written on my lips - whose name is on your lips?
I think if we look at our first attempts to love most people would describe a similar experience. But how do we define love? I have asked approximately 600,000 students to their face this very question. In my talks at Schools, Churches and Youth Groups I ask two questions: ‘Hands up anyone here who does not want to give or receive love in their future?’ No one has ever raised their hand. That is saying something! There are not many things that you can get three or more people to agree on, not to mention thousands of people. So, we all want love but my next question to students is very telling; ‘What is love?’ Only two percent of students have ever given an answer to this question, saying things like, ‘when you have strong feelings for someone’, or ‘when you really like someone’ or ‘a chemical reaction in the brain.’
But I point out to them, everyone agreed they want love in their life but so few if any can tell me what love is to them. If we can’t define it or describe it, how will we know where to look for it and have indeed found it?
We use the word love a lot to describe our feelings for many things. We often say I love your shoes! Or I love football… I love pizza… I love my Mom… Well, I am sure you do not love pizza the same way you love your mom, right? In the Greek language there are three words for love, to cover all the different types of love – but in English we are stuck with just one. My aim is to help students grasp the difference between real authentic love and pizza love because this is what I had to grasp in my 20’s, I just wish I heard it earlier.
By twenty-five years old, I had successfully completed my B.A. degree in Applied Social Studies in Social Care, and I had obtained a job as a Social Care Practitioner with an organization who had the best standard of care in all of Ireland and the British Isles. But I wasn’t satisfied, something was niggling me - is this my life now I asked? University done, great job in the bag, and now on the conveyor belt to promotion.
It was at this moment I decided to enroll at St Patrick’s Pontifical University Maynooth, Ireland and complete a part-time Higher Diploma in Theological Studies. I balanced my forty hour a week job with study, Hurling training, and clubbing at least three to four times a week. I also just had a relationship end and to this day I cannot say which one of us ended it, but, it was the same dissatisfying dead end that I had encountered numerous times before. I was Twenty-Five, my older brother and sister had found their significant others when they turned twenty - what was wrong with me?
I was still holding out by the thinnest of threads for the one the girl I would spend my life with but when that latest in a long list of relationships ended, I said to God; ‘right the next girlfriend I have we will just do whatever she wants because these relationships are not working.’
Imagine saying that to God?! But that was Saturday and I heard about a group called Pure in Heart who ran a prayer meeting in Dublin City centre with a holy hour and mass each Thursday evening. I invited myself as I felt strongly I needed to be there, and it was there that would forever change my life. Firstly, there was over 60 young people in their 20’s and late teens and they were lovely and normal and even a few who looked very like a young St. Therese of Lisieux. Then during mass, the priest said during his homily, ‘Tonight I want to speak about real true love in a relationship.’ I nearly burst out laughing! This priest in his late 60’s is going to lecture me about relationships, sure he’s not even married - what does he know about love, I said to myself? The priest then shared how he thought he was in love with a girl when he was Sixteen. He described how he was giving giving giving in the relationship and she was taking taking taking and that this was not love; love was a mutual giving, - this was infatuation.
I didn’t know what that meant at the time but thank God he continued by clearly stating that infatuation is when you put someone on a pedestal, and you make them into who you want them to be and not see them for who they really are. I could relate to that! How often I would be asking myself on the second date with a woman - where was the women I first met?
The priest then shared with a tear running down his cheek how watching that relationship end was like watching a flower wither and decay in his hand that he was helpless to do anything about. I was on the verge of tears myself but then he stated he found real authentic love in his calling to be a priest and then he gave us his definition of authentic love;
‘My humble definition of authentic love is having the sense of going home you know like when you’re driving home for Christmas and you have not seen the family in ages. I’m going home… if you have that sense with someone or a religious order that’s where you belong because we are all being called home our eternal home.’
I was on the edge of seat the entire time tears forming in my eyes and I knew this is what I wanted and all the girlfriends I had I was not going home I was no where near it and I made a firm decision to come back the next week and the next. I eventually left my high paying job and joined the Pure in Heart mission team, proposing, not imposing the virtue of chastity and Pope John Paul’s theology of the body. My good spiritual director Fr. Alan O’Sullivan said we must be like the butterfly and not the wasp - they both pollinate the flowers but in very different ways. People are attracted to the grace and beauty of the butterfly we do not go around stinging people with the truth.
Giving this yes to God led me all over the world, to my amazing wife who surpasses all my hopes, and by the grace of God I was a virgin on my wedding night as was my wife who had also waited for me. We have four children, three of which run around up to mischief each day and baby Daniel in heaven.
I now proclaim the culture of life and reproductive relationships with SPUC Scotland reaching over 15,000 students in classrooms a year. Now more than ever young people need to hear this option of striving for authentic love through the virtue of chastity. I will be speaking at the FREE Love Life Relationship Conference next weekend the 12-14th of May. I recommend to parents; sign your children up, there are over eighty speakers in which your children will find good role models to follow online. Finally, I will end with a quote from the guy running the conference;
‘Chastity isn’t about following a bunch of rules, so you don’t go to hell… its about wanting heaven for the person you love.’
Emmet hails from Ireland, before moving to Motherwell when he became Director of Education and Outreach for SPUC Scotland (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children).
ColmCille 1500
As part of the fifteen hundred year anniversary of the birth of St Columba, a joint national initiative between the Bishops of Argyll and Raphoe (Donegal), CTS Publishing, St Mungo Books and Fr Ross Crichton of Eriskay has produced a wonderful trilingual Novena to St Columba. Fr Crichton introduces the Novena below:
Various Dioceses are linked into the ColmCille 1500 initiative which is coordinating events to mark the 1500th anniversary of the birth of St Columba. I set to work on composing a Novena and Litany to St Columba which I translated into English, and through contacts in Ireland, had translated into Irish too. The purpose of the project was to encourage the praying of the Novena as a form of spiritual preparation for St Columba's Feast Day on the 9th June this summer. This will be promoted as a National Initiative in Scotland and Ireland. The project has the backing of the Bishop of Raphoe (Donegal) and Argyll & the Isles (Scotland) who have both contributed forewords to the booklet.
The booklet is unique in that it will be a trilingual publication. As such, it will appeal to those who are interested not just in spirituality, but those who are interested in Celtic culture and linguistic heritage. Although it is aimed principally at the celebration of this year's anniversary, it is a devotion which can be used at any time and well beyond the anniversary. It is the only publication being issued by the Catholic Church to mark the Saint's anniversary.
If you wish to Pre-Order the Book go to CTS here.
For more information on ColmCille 1500 click here to visit the website.
God Bless from Eric and the Team