Tag: Church

The Dormition of Mary

Mother of Christ

Father Bourdaloue, a famous preacher of the 17th century French court, said in a sermon on the Assumption:

Never was there a death more precious in the sight of God than that of the Virgin, because there was never a life more filled with merits than Hers. The death of the Blessed Virgin was precious not only by the merits which preceded it, but also by the graces and favors which accompanied it. But what made it precious in God’s sight is above all the dispositions of mind and heart with which She received it… What then was Her disposition of mind? She envisaged death in the light of the purest faith, as the fulfillment of her wishes, as the means of being promptly reunited with Her Son and Her God, whose absence had for so long been a source of sorrow for Her. Her disposition of heart? Seeing death in this light, She desired it with all the ardor of the most fervent charity. Far more fervently than Saint Paul She longed to be disengaged from the bonds of the flesh, to live with Jesus Christ…

The bishop of Meaux, Bossuet, preaches in the same vein: If the great Apostle wants to break the bonds of the flesh to go to meet his Master at the Father’s right hand, what must the emotion of a maternal heart be? … And what regret had the Virgin not experienced, seeing Herself separated for so long from a Son whom She loved as She alone could love? … She prayed, Ah, my Lord! permit my love to act! It will soon detach my soul from my mortal body, and transport me to You, in whom alone I live.’ If you believe me, holy souls, you will not labor long to seek any other cause for Her death. This love, so ardent, so strong, so inflamed, could not utter a single sigh incapable of breaking all the bonds of that body; it did not send forth a single desire to heaven which did not take with it the soul of Mary. Ah! I said earlier that the death of Mary was miraculous; now I speak a little differently, and say that it is not so much Her death that is a miracle; Her death is rather the cessation of a miracle. The continuous miracle was that Mary could live, separated from Her Beloved.

We see from these texts why the departure of the soul of Our Lady is not termed a death like that of other mortals, but rather a dormition — a falling asleep in the Lord, as the early Christians called it. (Cf. Acts 7:60) All writers on the subject are unanimous — it was Her supreme love for God, nothing else, which was its cause. Tradition affirms that She knew in advance that Her departure was at hand, and prepared with incredible fervor for the holy moment, when She would hear the voice of Her Son say: Come to Your eternal repose, O blessed Mother: arise and come, You who are My Heart’s friend, the most beautiful of women. The winter is over, the springtime begins; come, My all-beautiful one, My beloved; there is no stain in You; I prefer Your perfumes to all others.

Somme des Grandeurs de Marie, by Abbé Z.-C. Jourdain (H. Walzer: Paris, 1900), Vol. II

Mary, Refuge Of Sinners

by Very Rev. C.J. O’Connell, 1914

When sin entered the world, such a blight rested upon it, that God communed no longer with man as He was wont to do. There was no fit refuge for him. All was darksome. Gloom brooded over the habitation the Creator was accustomed to visit before its defilement. In his transgression man closed his heart against his God, who could find no delight in a place defiled by sin, where He once loved to dwell. Continue reading →

St. Hippolytus, Priest and Martyr

From Prudent. hymn. 11. De Cor. ed. a P. Chamillard, in usum Delphini, p. 278.

A.D. 252.

ONE of the most illustrious martyrs who suffered in the reign of Gallus 1 was St. Hippolytus, one of the twenty-five priests of Rome, who had the misfortune for some time to have been deceived by the hypocrisy of Novation and Novatus, and to have been engaged in their schism; but this fault he expiated by his public repentance, and a glorious martyrdom. He was apprehended, and interrogated on the rack in Rome; but the prefect of the city having filled it with Christian blood, went to Ostia to extend the persecution in those parts of the country, and ordered our saint and several other Christians who were then in prison at Rome, to be conducted thither after him. St. Hippolytus being brought out of prison, many of those who had been under his care, came to beg his last advice and blessing, as he was going to martyrdom; and he vehemently exhorted them to preserve the unity of the church. “Fly,” said he, “from the unhappy Novatus, and return to the Catholic church. Adhere to the only faith which subsists from the beginning, which was preached by Paul, and is maintained by the chair of Peter. I now see things in a different light, and repent of what I once taught.” Continue reading →

Saint John Berchmans

Jesuit Seminarian
(1599-1621)

Born in 1599 in Diest, a town of northern Belgium near Brussels and Louvain, this angelic young Saint was the oldest of five children. Two of his three brothers became priests, and his father, after the death of John’s mother when he was eleven years old, entered religion and became a Canon of Saint Sulpice. Continue reading →

Saint Clare of Assisi

Foundress and Abbess
(1194-1253)

On Palm Sunday, March 19, 1212, a maiden eighteen years of age left her rich and noble family to retire for her reception as a religious to the little church of the Portiuncula. This maiden was Saint Clare. Already she had learned from Saint Francis to scorn the world, and was secretly resolved to live for God alone. There she was met by Saint Francis and his brethren, and at the altar of Our Lady, Saint Francis cut off her hair, clothed her in the habit of penance, a piece of sackcloth, with a cord as a cincture. Thus was she espoused to Christ. Saint Francis placed her for the moment in a Benedictine convent. Continue reading →