The 22nd of February, Washington's birthday, is kept as a national holiday, at least in certain portions of the country. I well remember that formerly military and fire companies paraded the streets, and that patriotic speeches recounting the heroic deeds of the first President were delivered, the festivities of the day closing with a social banquet.
As the citizens of the United States manifest in divers ways their admiration for Washington, so do the citizens of the republic of the Church love to exhibit in corresponding forms their veneration for the Mother of Jesus.
Monuments and statues are erected to her. Thrice each day--at morn, noon and even--the Angelus bells are rung, to recall to our mind the Incarnation of our Lord, and the participation of Mary in this great mystery of love.
Her shrines are tastefully adorned by pious hands and visited by devoted children, who wear her relics or any object which bears her image, or which is associated with her name.
Her natal day and other days of the year, sacred to her memory, are appropriately commemorated by processions, by participation in the banquet of the Eucharist, and by sermons enlarging on her virtues and prerogatives.
As no one was ever suspected of loving his country and her institutions less because of his revering Washington, so no one can reasonably suppose that our homage to God is diminished by our fostering reverence for Mary. As our object in eulogizing Washington is not so much to honor the man as to vindicate those principles of which he was the champion and exponent, and to express our gratitude to God for the blessings bestowed on our country through him, even so our motive in commemorating Mary's name is not merely to praise her, but still more to keep us in perpetual remembrance of our Lord's Incarnation, and to show our thankfulness to Him for the blessings wrought through that great mystery in which she was so prominent a figure. There is not a grain of incense offered to Mary which does not ascend to the throne of God Himself.
Experience sufficiently demonstrates that the better we understand the part which Mary has taken in the work of redemption, the more enlightened becomes our knowledge of our Redeemer Himself, and that the greater our love for her, the deeper and broader is our devotion to Him; while experience also testifies that our Savior's attributes become more confused and warped in the minds of a people in proportion as they ignore Mary's relations to Him.