MiLBT
753
aUBY
Mary, The Blessed Vibgin. See Viboin hUsj,
The Bucssed.
Mary, The Name of, in Scripttll^ and in Oathdio
use. New Testament. Mapidfi ana sometimes U^kk^i seems impossible, in the present state of the text, tosay whether the form Mariam was reserved by the Evan- gelists for the Mother of Christ, und the form At aria used for all others of the name. The form Maptd/i un- doubtedly represents the Hebrew D^"ID, the name of the sister of Moses and Aaron (Num., xii. 1 sqq.). In 1 Par., iv, 17, it occurs presumably ad the name of a man, but the Septuagint has rbv Maptbv, The ety-» mology of the name D^"lD (Miriam) is exceedingly doubtful. Two roots are proposed: (a) miO mean- ing " to rebel", in which connexion some have endeav- oured to derive the name of the sister of Moses from her rebellion against him (Num., xii^ 1). But this seems far-fetched, as her murmuring is by no means the only, or the principal event, recorded of her; (b) «1D meaning "to be fat"; it is thought that, since the possession of this quality was, to the Semitic mind, the essence of beauty, the name Miriam may have meant "beautiful". But the meaning "lady^ which is to common among the Fathers of the Church, and which is enshrined in the Catholic expression "Our Lady", has much to support it. Th« Aramaic tnD means " Lord " as we see in St. Paul's Marano/Ad— 1. e. " Come, Lord", or "the Lord is nigh". It is true that the name Miriam has no N in our Hebrew text; but, though the Aramaic word for " lord " always has an K in the older inscriptions (e. g. those of ^njirli of the eighth century, b. c), yet in later inscriptions from Pahnyra the K has gone. Besides, the presence of the ] may well be due to the formative ending d, which 18 generally a sign of abstract nouns. The rendering "star of the sea" is without foundation except in a tropological sense; Cornelius ii Lapide would render "lady, or teacher, or guide of the sea", the sea being this world, of which Christ Himself (Num., xxiv, 17) is the Star. The frequency with which the name occurs in the New Testament (cf. infra) shows that it was a favourite one at the time of Christ. One of Herod's wives was the ill-fated Mariamne, a Jewess; Joeephus gives us this name sometimes as Mariamme, at others as Mariame or Mariamne. The favour in which the name was then held is scarcely to be at- tributed to the influence her fate had on the Jews (Stanley, "Jewish Church "^ III, 429); it is far more likely that the fame of the sister of Moses contributed to this result — cf. Mich., vi, 4, where Miriam is put on the same footing as Moses and Aaron: " I sent be- fore thy face Moses and Aaron and Mary." At a time when men like Simeon were " looking for the Conso- lation of Israel ", their minds would naturally revert to the great names of the Exodus. For extra-Biblical instances of the name at this time see Josephus, 'Antiquities ", ivj 6; XVIII, v, 4, and "Jewish War", VI, IV. In Christian times the name has always been popular; no less than seven historically famous Marys are given in the " Dictionary of Christian Biography ". Among Catholics it is one of the commonest of bap- tismal names; and in many reli^ous orders, both of men and of women, it is the practice to take this name in addition to some other distinctive name, when entering the religious state.
Besides the Biblical dioUooaries and the ordinary oommen- /?C^ "®® Bardknhbwer, Der Name Maria in Bibl Studim (Fretbum. ISW). ^^^^ ^^^^
Mary Anne de Paredes, Blessed, b. at Quito. Ecuador, 31 Oct., 1618; d. at Quito, 26 May, 1646. On both sides of her family she was sprung from an illustrious line of ancestors, her father being Don Girolamo Flores Zenel de Paredes, a nobleman of Toledo, and her mother Dofla Mariana Cranobles di Xaramilo, a descendant of one of the best Spanish famihes. Her birth was accompanied by most un- IX.-48
usual phenomena in the heavens, clearly connected
with the. child and juridically attested at the time of
the process of beatification* Almost from infancy
she gave signs of an extraordmary attraction for
piuver and mortification, of love for God and devotion
to the Bl^seed Virgin; and besides bein^ the recipient
of many other remarkable manifestations of divine
favour was a number of times miraculously preserved
from death. At the a^ of ten vears she made the
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. She was
very desirous of conveying the light of faith to the
peoples sitting in darlcness, and later ot entering a
monastery; but when God made it plain to her that
He wished neither the one nor the other of these pioua
designs, she acauiesoed in the Divine will, and made
for herself a solitude in her own home where, apart
from all worldly cares and closely united to God, she
gave herself up to the practice of unheard-of corporal
austerities. The fast which she kept was so strict
that she took scarcely an ounce of dry bread every
ei^t or ten days. The food which miraculously such
tamed her life, as in the case of St. Catherine and Bt,
Rose of Lima, was, according to the sworn testimony
of many witnesses, the Eucharistic Bread alone which
she received every morning in Holy Communion. She
possessed an ecstatic gift of prayer, predicted the
future, saw distant events as if they were passing
before her, read the secrets of hearts, cured diseases
by a mere sign of the Cross, or by sprinkling the
sufferer with holy water, and at least once she restored
a dead person to life. The very day she died her
sanctity was shown in a wonderful manner, for imme-
diately after her death there sprang up from her blood
and blossomed and bloomea a pure white lily, a
prodigy which has given her the title of "The Lily <rf
QuitoA
The first preliminary steps towards the beatlfkatioa were taken by Monsignor Alfonso della Pegna, who instituted the process for inquiring into and collecting evidence for the sanctity of her life, her virtues and her nairacles; but the authenticated copy of the examina- tion of the witnesses was not forwarded to Rome until 1754. The Sacred Congregation of Rites, having dis- cussed and approved of this process, decided in favour of the formal introduction of the cause, and Benedict XIV signed the commission for introducing the cause 17 Dec, 1757. The Apostolic process concerning the virtues of the Venerable Mary Anne de Paredes wa^r drawn up and examined in due form by the two Pre- paratory Congregations and by the General Congremr tion of Rites, and orders were given by Pius VI for the publication of the decree attesting the heroic chanio- ter of her virtues. The process concerning the two miracles wrought through the intercession of the servant of God was subsequently prepared and, at the request of the Very Rev. John Rootnaan, Genertfl of the Society of Jesus, was examined and accepted l^ the three congregations, and was formally approved 11 Jan., 1847, by Pius IX. The General Congregation having decided in favour of proceeding to the beatifica- tion, Pius IX commanded the Brief of Beatification to be prepared. Very Rev. Peter Beckx, General of the Society of Jesus, petitioned Cardinal Patrizi to order the publication ot the Brief; his request was granted. The Brief was read and the solemn oeatification took place ua the Vatican Basilica 10 Nov., 1853. Many miracles have been the reward of those who have in- voked her intercession, especially in America, of which she seems pleased to show herself the especial patron- ess.
BoBRO, BUaaed Mary Ann of Jemu; The Roman Breviary.
J. H. FiSHEB.
Mary de Oeryellione (or de Cervello), popu- larly styled " de Socos " (of Help) Saint, b. about 1230 at Barcelona; d . there 19 Septemlxjr, 1290. She was a daughter of a Spanish nobleman named William de
