Mary Immaculate, Patroness of the United States

MARY IMMACULATE, PATRONESS OF THE UNITED STATES T HE liturgy of the Church, as well as popular devotion, perpetuates the venerable tradition by which special patrons are invoked as special intercessors with God and celestial advocates, so to speak, for particular localities, groups or works within that Universal Church for which Christ Himself makes constant intercession before the Throne of the }'ather. Such patrons probably began to be chosen as an outgrowth from the early Church custom of honoring certain martyrs as the "titulars" of churches and places. During the first three centuries the faithful assembled for worship in private homes, in the places where their beloved dead were buried or in other secluded areas where neither the persecution nor the contamination of the paganism about them could invade the peace and quiet of the Christian devotion. As occasion permitted, buildings were erected or adapted for Christian cult. These buildings were not "dedicated" to saints originally, as churches and institutions now are, but were set apart and cherished as "houses of God" or "houses of prayer." Their Greek and Latin names indicate this primary dedication of them: kyriaca, dominica, oratoria. It was only after Constantine accorded to Christians peaceful freedom in the practice of their religion and in the construction of churches that these began to be dedicated to saints. The origin of the custom of so dedicating the gathering places of the faithful seems natural enough. The sites chosen for the construction of churches were usually places already beloved by the Christian community because of their association with the martyrs, greatest of the heroes among the Christians. The association might have been because they were the scenes of the triumphs of martyrs, of their glorious deaths, or because 428 MARY IMMACULATE, PATRONESS OF THE UNITED STATES 429 they were made holy in some other way by the lives and the memories of those who bore ultimate and most valiant witness to their faith by the testimony of martyrdom. And so it came to pass that early in the history of the Church in Rome and elsewhere the buildings erected for Christian worship took their titles from " titulars " among the martyrs or other saints whose pious memories were associated with the places on which the churches were built or with the communities by whom these buildings were erected, supported or frequented . It was inevitable, both as a matter of logic and as a matter of piety, that those who gave their names to churches and to institutions as their " titulars " should eventually be thought of as the special protectors and " patrons " of the places and peoples dedicated to them. * * * In general terms it may be said that down to the 17th century it was largely popular devotion, though under the guidance of ecclesiastical authority, which chose celestial patrons from among the holy men and women renowned in life for their miracles and for their special ties of piety to the communities or institutions of which they became the protectors. In 1638, however, Pope Urban VIII set down certain rules by which the faithful of the Church itself should be guided in the selections·henceforth of patrons for churches, cities or even countries. Pope Urban was careful in thus codifying future procedure to leave unchanged the long established customs by which traditional patrons were already venerated so long as these customs were consistent with sound piety and theological principles. The norms promulgated by Pope Urban systematized and clarified many of the considerations by which particular patrons had been chosen popularly in previous generations. Often a saint was chosen as the patron of a region or of a community because his body or some one of his major relics was in the possession of those who chose him as their patron. Frequently, a saint was chosen as patron of a place where he had preached ~he Gospel or had performed the labors of his dedicated life ~r had died in the odor of sanctity. Sometimes the selection of 430 JOHN WRIGHT patrons reflects the popular devotions preached at the time when the choice was made. The underlying doctrine sustaining and inspiring the custom of choosing celestial patrons is, of course, the dogma...