Pastor’s Column

THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION

St Bernard of Clairvaux: “And with regard to ourselves,how deservedly do we keep the Feast of the Assumption with all solemnity. What reasons for rejoicing, what motives for exultation have we on this most beautiful day! The presence of Mary illumines the entire world so that even the holy city above has now a more dazzling splendour from the light of this virginal Lamp. With good reason, thanksgiving and the voice of praise, resound today throughout the courts of Heaven… let us not complain, for here we do not have a lasting city but we seek one that is to come, the same which the blessed Mary entered today.”

St Modestus of Jerusalem: “As the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Saviour and our 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.”

St John Damascene: “It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity 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 God’sMother should possess what belongs to her Son and that she should be honoured by every creature as the Mother and the Handmaid of God.”

St Gregory of Tours: “The Apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb; and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; and the holy body having been received, He commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise: where now, rejoined to the soul, [Mary] rejoices with the Lord’s chosen ones.”