Friedrich Bernard Christian Maassen
United Sees of Macerata and Tolentino
Vicariate Apostolic of Mackenzie
Marie-Edmé-Patrice-Maurice de MacMahon
Joseph-Anna-Marie de Moyria de Mailla
François-Pierre-Gonthier Maine de Biran
Françoise, Marquise de Maintenon
Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre
Marcellinus of Civezza, O.F.M.
Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament
Prefecture Apostolic of Mariana Islands
Congregation of the Missionaries of Mariannhill
Sts. Maris, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum
Lucius Perpetuus Aurelianus Marius Maximus
Vicariate Apostolic of Marquesas Islands
Moral and Canonical Aspect of Marriage
Diocese of Marseilles (Massilia)
Vicariate Apostolic of the Marshall Islands
Diocese of Marsico Nuovo and Potenza
Luigi Ferdinando, Count de Marsigli
Missionaries of the Company of Mary
Servants of Mary (Order of Servites)
Society of Mary (Marist Fathers)
St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds of Jesus
Richard Angelus a S. Francisco Mason
Devises and Bequests for Masses (United States)
Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus
Caius Julius Verus Maximinus Thrax
Prefecture Apostolic of Mayotte, Nossi-Bé, and Comoro
Charles Joseph Eugene de Mazenod
Abbey and Congregation of Melk
Vicariate Apostolic of Méndez and Gualaquiza
Francisco Sarmiento de Mendoza
Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy
Sisters of Mercy of St. Borromeo
Frédéric-François-Xavier Ghislain de Mérode
Delegation Apostolic of Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, and Armenia
Metal-Work in the Service of the Church
Prince Klemens Lothar Wenzel von Metternich
Francis, Joseph, and Paul Mezger
Military Orders of St. Michael
Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola
Congregation of the Sisters of Misericorde
Prefecture Apostolic of Misocco and Calanca
Congregation of Priests of the Mission
Congregation of Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo
Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales of Annecy
Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle
Mission Indians (of California)
Catholic Indian Missions of Canada
Catholic Indian Missions of the United States
François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno
Diocese of Molfetta, Terlizzi, and Giovinazzo
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière
Principality and Diocese of Monaco
Canonical Erection of a Monastery
Monophysites and Monophysitism
Monothelitism and Monothelites
Montagnais Indians (Chippewayans)
Charles-Forbes-René, Comte de Montalembert
Marquis de Louis-Joseph Montcalm-Gozon
Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
Anne, First Duke of Montmorency
Alexis-François Artaud de Montor
Antoine-Jean-Baptiste-Robert Auget, Baron de Montyon
Dioceses of Mostar and Markana-Trebinje
Feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary
Toribio de Benavente Motolinia
Congregations of Mount Calvary
Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Karl Ernst, Freiherr von Moy de Sons
Johann Chrysostomus Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
St. Clair Augustine Mulholland
Baron Eligius Franz Joseph von Münch-Bellinghausen
Archdiocese of Munich-Freising
In its principal object this feast is identical with the feast of the "Inner Life of Mary", celebrated by the Sulpitians on 19 October. It commemorates the joys and sorrows of the Mother of God, her virtues and perfections, her love for God and her Divine Son and her compassionate love for mankind. In a subordinate manner, its object is also the physical Heart of Mary, which, being part of her sinless and virginal body, is the symbol and sensible object representing the sentiments and virtues of Mary (see DEVOTION TO THE HEART OF MARY). The feast originated with Blessed John Eudes as the patronal feast of his congregations of priests and nuns, and was, since 1644, kept at the seminary of Caen on 20 October. The office, which is very beautiful, was composed by Blessed John Eudes in 1641 but its text was not definitely fixed before 1672. In 1647 the date of the feast was changed to 8 February, the feast being solemnized publicly for the first time, with the permission of Bishop Ragny, at the cathedral of Autun on 8 February, 1648, In 1668 Cardinal Vendôme approved the office, and the feast was adopted the same year by the French Franciscans, the Benedictine Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration, and later by a number of dioceses and religious communities, contrary to decrees of the Congregation of Rites prohibiting the feast of the Heart of Mary. The bishops of the Church in France claimed at this period the right to institute new feasts, and to compose offices and new breviaries without consulting the Roman authorities. In 1672 Blessed John Eudes could state that the feast had spread over nearly all France. It was mostly kept on 8 February, but at the HôtelDieu of Quebec (since 1690) on 3 July, and at SaintMaclou, Rouen, on the Sunday after 22 August (Office pr. 1765; triple of the first class).
The Nuns of Notre Dame de Corbeil (8 Feb., 1787) were the first to obtain papal sanction for the feast from Pius VI (kept on 22 August as a double of the first class with octave). The same pope later approved it for the Carmelites of Saint-Denys (8 Feb.), and for the Nuns of Fontevrault (Sunday after 2 July). On 22 March, 1799, it was granted to the city of Palermo (third Sunday after Pentecost); on 13 Aug., 1805, to the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God; in 1806 to Siena; in 1807 to the Discalced Carmelites; on 2 Sept., 1807, to the Capuchins and Hermits of St. Augustine for the Sunday after the Octave of the Assumption; on 19 Sept., 1807, to Tuscany. The city of Rome adopted the feast in 1879. In the Society of Jesus it is observed on the Sunday within the Octave of the Assumption. The feast has not yet been extended to the entire Church. It is kept as the patronal feast of the Republic of Ecuador, of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, of the Society of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and of the Missionary Society of the Heart of Mary on the Sunday after 22 August. The feast is celebrated at Cosenza (Calabria) on 7 February (earthquake, 1783), by the English Benedictines on the first Sunday of May; in the ecclesiastical province of Lemberg on the last Saturday in May; at Bologna, Pescia, Volaterra etc., on the second Sunday in July; at Salerno on the last Sunday after Pentecost, etc. The office of Blessed John Eudes, universally used in France for over a hundred years, was finally approved for the Eudists (8 Feb.) in 1861. The office contained in the Appendix of the Roman Breviary was granted on 21 July, 1857; the dioceses of Palermo, Salerno, Catanzaro, etc., use that composed by Père Gallifet in 1726.
The feast of the Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, refuge of sinners, is celebrated on the Sunday before Septuagesima at Paris, Chartres, Reims, Limoges, Vannes, Nantes, at Lucca in Toscana, in the ecclesiastical province of St. Louis, Missouri, etc.
Oeuvres Complètes de B. Jean Eudes, XI (Vannes, 1910), 147 sqq.; NILLES, De rationibus festorurn utriusque Cordis (Innsbruck, 1885); HOLWECK, Fasti Mariani (Freiburg, 1892).
FREDERICK G. HOLWECK