Devotion to Our Lady Brings Joy

Mass religious fervour: The English football hooligan

Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith writes an excellent piece today for The Catholic Herald on how this country has been deprived of the joyful devotion to Our Blessed Lady that once rose sweetly up to Heaven.

We have become a quite joyless race of people and Fr Alexander is right to point to the continent where not only is the climate more sunny and cheerful, but the people are more sunny and cheerful as well.

The effects of protestantism on us have been many and varied, but above all, we are a very stressed out, quite violent and pent up people who are as unable to accept ourselves as we are others. The only processions the English are interested in are to do with football and, as we know, the occasional riot. Catholicism may be waning severely in Spain, but liberalism has not yet diminished the Spaniards public devotion to Our Lady and the Saints, and regardless of a decline in the belief in the Real Presence, their processions in honour of the Sacred Heart and especially the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady are something to behold. Our Lady brings us joy.