Mother! Your Body is Holy and Glorious
1 Chr 15:3-4,15-16,16:1-2; 1 Cor 15:54-57; Lk
11:27-28 (C )
Arise, O Virgin Queen. You are worthy of everlasting
honour: enter the splendid palace of the eternal King (Divine Office)
In their sermons on the feast day of the Assumption
of the Mother of God, the holy fathers and the great doctors of the church were
speaking of something that the faithful already knew and accepted. All they did
was to bring it out into the open, to explain its meaning and substance in
other terms. Above all, they made it most clear that this feast commemorated
not merely the fact that the blessed Virgin Mary did not experience bodily
decay, but also her triumph over death and her heavenly glory, following the
example of her only Son, Jesus Christ.
St John Damascene exalted her privileges, “It was
right that she who had kept her virginity unimpaired through the process of
giving birth should have kept her body without decay through death. It was
right that she who had given her Creator, as a child, a place at her breast
should be given a place in the dwelling-place of her God. It was right that the
bride espoused by the Father should dwell in the heavenly bridal chamber. It
was right that she who had gazed on her Son on the cross, her heart pierced at
that moment by the sword of sorrow that she had escaped at his birth, should
now gaze on him seated with his Father. It was right that the Mother of God
should possess what belongs to her Son and be honoured by every creature as
God’s Mother and handmaid. St. Germanus of Constantinople considered the
preservation from decay of the body of the Mother of God because she had become
the dwelling-place of God. It became a glorious and incorruptible life, living
and unharmed, sharing the perfect life.
It is essential to remember the Virgin
Mary as the new Eve (Rom 5:12-21) for the new Adam. She is not equal to him, of
course, but closely joined with him in the battle against the enemy, which
ended in the triumph over sin and death that had been promised even in Paradise
(Gen 3: 14-19). The glorious resurrection of Christ is
essential to this victory and its final prize, but the blessed Virgin’s share
in that fight must also have ended in the glorification of her body. For as the
Apostle says: When this mortal nature has put on immortality, then the
scripture will be fulfilled that says “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor
15).
The great Mother of God, so mysteriously united to
Jesus Christ from all eternity by the same decree of predestination,
immaculately conceived. As an associate
of Christ, she defeated sin and its consequences and received the final
crowning privilege of being preserved from the corruption of the grave
following her Son in his victory over death. Thus she was brought, body and
soul, to the highest glory of heaven, to shine as Queen at the right hand of
that same Son, the immortal King of Ages.
The Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XII on the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Lord chose her: he chose her before she was born.
He has brought her to live in his own dwelling-place
(Divine Office)
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