LADY TIDE. 85 



4-MARCH 25. ANNUNCIATION of Our Lady. 



St r^Qmmin dliKnt in fi/i.9 



St. Cammin, abbot, in 653. 



Obs. Lady Day or the great Festival of the Annunciation takes 

 its name from the glad tidings brought by the Angel Gabriel to the 

 Blessed Virgin Mary, concerning the incarnation of the Son of God. 

 The Angel begins his message with, Hait, Mary, full of Grace ! the 

 Lord is with thee. St. Luke, i. 28. From 'these words of the 

 Angel, St. Elizabeth composed the first and from herself the second 

 parts of the Angelical Salutation used in the daily service, the 

 third part was added by the Church, and the whole made into 

 the Rosary by St. Dominic, who introduced the custom of repeating 

 it on the Beads. 



To praise the Divine Goodness for the incomprehensible mystery 

 of the Incarnation, Pope Urban II. ordered the bell to be rang for 

 the triple salutation called Angelus Domini at morning, noon, and 

 night. 



This Festival is kept with great pomp at Rome, when the dome 

 of St. Peter's Church, as on St. Peter's Day and other great festi- 

 vals, is illuminated. 



Marygold Calendula officinalis flowers. 



This plant received the Latin name of Calendula because it was 

 in flower on the Calends of nearly every month. It has been called 

 Marygold for a similar reason, being more or less in blow at the 

 times of all the festivals of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the word gold 

 having reference to its golden rays, likened to the rays of light 

 around the head of the Blessed Virgin. At Candlemas in warm 

 climates the old last year's plants will shew a few flowers. Even in 

 our climate a few flowers appear about Ladytide. The full flower- 

 ing takes place about the Visitation, July 2. The young plants 

 flower about the Assumption, Aug. 15. Seedlings of the same year 

 will flower about the Nativity of our Lady, Sept. 8, and they con- 

 tinue to flower through the whole period, including Nov. 21 and 

 Dec, 8, thus blowing on all Virgin's Feasts. Thus say the old 

 writers, and the fact is true. The early botanists in our monastery 

 gardens, the inventors of religious emblems, called this plant there- 

 fore Marygold. The same names of Calendula and of ]Marygold 

 are applied, and with equal propriety to other species of the same 

 genus, ('old winters frequently kill the old Marygold plants, and 

 then no flowers are to be seen till the young seedlings appear. 

 Shakspeare speaks of this plant and its period of closing its flowers : 



The Marygold, that goes to bed with the sun, 



And with him rises weeping. 



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