Ordinary Time: June 6th
Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church
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Gospel Verse:
O happy Virgin, you gave birth to the Lord; O blessed mother of the Church, you warm our hearts with the Spirit of your Son Jesus Christ.
Pope Francis has decreed that the ancient devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of Mother of the Church, be inserted into the Roman Calendar. The liturgical celebration, B. Mariæ Virginis, Ecclesiæ Matris, will be celebrated annually as a Memorial on the day after Pentecost.
Today is also the Optional Memorial of St. Norbert.St. Paul VI, at the conclusion of the Third Session of the Second Vatican Council in 1964, declared the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Mother of the Church," that is to say of all Christian people, the faithful as well as the pastors, who call her the most loving Mother and established that “the Mother of God should be further honored and invoked by the entire Christian people by this tenderest of titles." But it was not until February 11, 2018, that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments inscribed a new obligatory Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother of the Church, into the General Roman Calendar. This memorial is celebrated every year on the Monday after Pentecost, which is appropriate as Mary was also present in that room for the birthday of the Church.
Mary, Mother of the Church
By issuing the Decree on the celebration of the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church, Pope Francis wishes to promote this devotion in order to “encourage the growth of the maternal sense of the Church in the pastors, religious and faithful, as well as a growth of genuine Marian piety."

- Read more about Mary, Mother of the Church
- Pray the Prayer to Mary, Mother of the Church as composed by Pope Francis.

Monday after Pentecost
Station with San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains):
In spirit we are today in the Basilica in which are preserved the blessed chains worn by St. Peter because, true to his Pentecostal mission, he had proclaimed the glad tidings of redemption. Hail venerable chains! (Msgr Martin Hellriegel).
This church was one of the tituli, Rome's first parish churches, known as the Titulus Eudoxiae or the Eudoxiana. It was built over the ruins of an Imperial villa in 442 (or possibly 439), to house the chains that had bound St. Peter in prison in Jerusalem.
For further information on the Station Churches, see The Stational Church.
Churches of Rome Info: San Pietro in Vincoli al Colle Oppio