December 18, Feast of Our Lady of O

This Substack is about whatever strikes my Catholic fancy, Catholic in the old sense of all-embracing, but also Catholic in the sense of being a member of and staunch believer in the Catholic Church.
This small colored statue of Our Lady of the O is in the church of the same name in Mosqueiro, PA, Brazil.
Today is exactly seven days before Christmas. In our culture, almost everyone—except a few who try to keep Advent as a penitential season—has been “celebrating Christmas” for weeks, some even having started their celebrations before Thanksgiving. Today’s feast of “Our Lady of O” has several names, including Santa Maria de la O, the Feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin’s Delivery, Our Lady’s Expectancy . . .. If we spend some time thinking about the meaning of this feast, we can put ourselves back where we belong at this time of year, in Advent mode, in the time of waiting and hoping.
This feast has never been in the universal …