THE
P RTAL
August 2016
Page 9
The Assumption
of Our Lady
Is a liturgical celebration enough for this
wonderful Solemnity? Fr Julian Green thinks not
J
ust the name of the month of August brings to my mind wonderful memories of the past: those
endless days of childhood playing with the other local children; family holidays around England and
beyond; weeks without school and without cares and worries. Oh, those days seem so far away now. And yet,
even today, August represents a ‘change of gear’ in an otherwise somewhat relentless round of duties.
The liturgical calendar, which continues
to plough through that amorphous and
uninspiringly named season of ‘Ordinary
Time’, is enriched by a wonderful array of
saints’ days, which proliferate in this month
more than any other. And at the heart of this
great cloud of saints figures Our Blessed
Lady , and the celebration of her elevation
to heavenly glory: the Assumption.
When I was sent to seminary in Valladolid
by Archbishop Couve de Murville in
1990, we arrived in Spain at Santander in
sweltering heat on 1st August. We had to
spend the whole month and a good deal
of the following month learning Spanish,
staying with Spanish families who had no
command of English.
reverence which we favour in more northern climes,
but in the midst of the chatter of the crowd who
divided between those who said the Rosary at as many
different tempos as the people who prayed it, and the
nonchalant who were more interested in the festivities
than the Feast. How the experience of indigenous
Catholicism contrasted with the middle of the road
The Assumption was celebrated with great gusto as Protestantism of my childhood, as well as with the wella village fiesta. There was the running of the bulls, as ordered ritual of my brief Anglo-Catholic awakening
the bravado of youth mingled with the effects of cheap in my youth.
wine and beer, urging the young men of the village
to take immense risks in front of the bulls which ran
When we see a Feast day as important as the
freely through the dusty streets of the pueblo.
Assumption pass with merely a liturgical celebration,
often reduced because of it being the middle of the
In the evening, a procession of Our Lady, holiday month, I do wish we had some greater cultural
accompanied by the aroma of the nearby pine woods, attachment to these feasts and to Our Lady herself.
the delicious meats which had been cooked on hot
coals during the day, and the incense, all heralded
However disordered the liturgical celebration in the
the image of Our Lady swaying. As did the crooning southern countries of Europe may seem, there is always
of old Marian hymns by the lady members of a local a deep devotion centred on a real lively relationship to
confraternity.
God, to Our Lady and the saints. If only we could bring
together a truly worthy and rich liturgical celebration
All of this took place not in the atmosphere of silent with a true devotion of the heart!
The sultry heat of the night made sleep impossible,
and the intensity of the afternoons made walking
anywhere like passing through hot oil. There was some
respite at the weekends, when we would go to stay at
the College’s country house just outside the city.