Episode Details

It's the Feast of XIX Sunday after Pentecost - Rosary Sunday, 2nd Class, with the color of White. In this episode: the meditation: "The First Espousals", today's news from the Church: "In Flüeli, Pilgrims Kept Vigil Beside St. Nicholas", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows? podcast@sspx.org

Sources Used Today:

• "The First Espousals" — From the Assumption to Advent
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/from-trinity-sunday-to-the-assumption
  
  
• "In Flüeli, Pilgrims Kept Vigil Beside St. Nicholas" (FSSPX.news)
  • https://fsspx.news/en/news/switzerland-flueli-pilgrims-kept-vigil-beside-st-nicholas-61281
  
  
• The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop
  
  

Today is the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, but this year it also falls on Rosary Sunday, which gives us a perfect excuse to look at a side of Francis we don't talk about nearly as often: his deep love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Francis is usually remembered for poverty, the stigmata, and maybe a bird or two.

But one of the deepest threads running through his spirituality was his love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Francis lived before the Rosary had developed into exactly the form Catholics know today, so we shouldn't picture him walking around Assisi with a modern five-decade rosary. But Marian prayer was everywhere in his life.

And one little chapel became especially important.

Early in his conversion, Francis discovered a crumbling church outside Assisi dedicated to Saint Mary of the Angels. We know it better as the Portiuncula. Francis repaired it with his own hands and came to love the place so much that it became the spiritual home of the entire Franciscan movement.

He wanted his friars close to Mary.

According to his early biographer Thomas of Celano, Francis had an almost indescribable love for the Mother of Jesus because, as he put it, she "made the Lord of Majesty our brother."

That's such a Franciscan way of looking at Mary.

He loved her because she gave us Jesus.

Francis composed prayers in her honor as well. In his *Salutation of the Blessed Virgin Mary*, he piles title upon title upon her: Holy Lady, Queen, Mother of God, Virgin made Church.

And his Marian devotion became part of the DNA of the Franciscan Order.