61 Virginis

Church Fathers and Doctors on Mary's Assumption

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• published: 20 Jan 2014
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"It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father. It was fitting that God's Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God." - Saint John Damascene, Encomium in Dormitionem Dei Genetricis Semperque Virginis Mariae, Hom. II, n. 14; cf. also ibid, n. 3 "You are she who, as it is written, appears in beauty, and your virginal body is all holy, all chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God, so that it is henceforth completely exempt from dissolution into dust. Though still human, it is changed into the heavenly life of incorruptibility, truly living and glorious, undamaged and sharing in perfect life." - Saint Germanus of Constantinople, In Sanctae Dei Genetricis Dormitionem, Sermo I "As the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Savior and God and the giver of life and immortality, has been endowed with life by him, she has received an eternal incorruptibility of the body together with him who has raised her up from the tomb and has taken her up to himself in a way known only to him." - Encomium in Dormitionem Sanctissimae Dominae Nostrate Deiparae Semperque Virginis Mariae, attributed to Saint Modestus of Jerusalem, n. 14 [On Psalm 61:13] "The place of the feet of Our Lord was the Blessed Virgin Mary from whom He assumed humanity and whom today He glorified because He exalted Her above the choirs of Angels...you have here a clear statement that the Blessed Virgin has been assumed in her body, where was the place of the Lord's feet. Hence it is that the holy Psalmist writes: 'Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark which you have sanctified.' [Psalm 131: 8]...the ark which Thou hast sanctified has risen up, since on this day the Virgin Mother has been taken up to her heavenly dwelling." - Saint Anthony of Padua, Sermones Dominicales et in Solemnitatibus, In Assumptione S. Mariae Virginis Sermo "From these proofs and authorities and from many others [Scriptures, statements of older writers, Liturgy, and theological reasoning], it is manifest that the most blessed Mother of God has been assumed above the choirs of angels. And this we believe in every way to be true." - Saint Albert the Great, Mariale, q. 132 [On Song 8:5] "From this we can see that she is there bodily...her blessedness would not have been complete unless she were there as a person. The soul is not a person, but the soul, joined to the body, is a person. It is manifest that she is there in soul and in body. Otherwise she would not possess her complete beatitude." - Saint Bonaventure, De Assumptione B. Mariae Virginis, Sermo 1 "And who, I ask, could believe that the ark of holiness, the dwelling place of the Word of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, could be reduced to ruin? My soul is filled with horror at the thought that this virginal flesh which had begotten God, had brought him into the world, had nourished and carried him, could have been turned into ashes or given over to be food for worms." - Saint Robert Bellarmine, Conciones Habitae Lovanii, n. 40, De Assumption B. Mariae Virginis "What son would not bring his mother back to life and would not bring her into paradise after her death if he could?" - Saint Francis de Sales, sermon for the Feast of the Assumption "Jesus did not wish to have the body of Mary corrupted after death, since it would have redounded to his own dishonor to have her virginal flesh, from which he himself had assumed flesh, reduced to dust." - Saint Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary, Part 2, d. 1 [On the Assumption] "This teaching has already been accepted for some centuries, it has been held as certain in the minds of the pious people, and it has been taught to the entire Church in such a way that those who deny that Mary's body has been assumed into heaven are not to be listened to patiently but are everywhere to be denounced as over-contentious or rash men, and as imbued with a spirit that is heretical rather than Catholic." - Saint Peter Canisius, De Maria Virgine Fathers and Doctors are taken from the Dogmatic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus (Dogma of the Assumption of Mary). Images are copyrighted to their respected owners, music is copyrighted to the Daughters of Mary. The Angelus sung in Latin.