[Leonine]

Why don't you just pray to God? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All saints are covered by the incorruptibility of Christ and so are you. Try this: pray to God from your heart and pray through a saint by memorized literature. During which prayer do you feel closer to the Lord?

[Ohioan from Florida]

During which prayer do you feel closer to the Lord?

Do whatever you are more comfortable with, but don't forget that the Holy Spirit is the one who is doing the interpreting for us either way. Romans 8:26-27 "In the same way, the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God's will." (NAB)

[jwalsh07]

From the 5th Century:


the Feast of the Assumption of Mary was celebrated in Syria;
The 5th and 6th Century:


the Apocryphal Books were testimony of a certain christian sense of the abhorency felt that the body of the Mother of God should lie in a sepulchre;
The 6th Century:


the Feast of the Assumption was celebrated in Jerusalem (and perhaps even in Alexandria);
From the 7th Century:


clear and explicit testimony was given on the Assumption of Mary in the Eastern Church; The same testimony is clear also in the Western Church (Gregory, Tours, 538-594);
In the 9th Century:


the Feast of the Assumption was celebrated in Spain;
From the 10th - 12th Century:


no dispute whatsoever in the Western Church; there was dispute over the false epistles of Jerome on the subject;
In the 12th Century:


the Feast of the Assumption was celebrated in the city of Rome, and in France;
From the 13th to present:


certain and undisputed faith in the Assumption of Mary in the universal Church;
1950, Pope Pius XII, declared infallibly, ex cathedra:


"Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory."

[jwalsh07]

Church Fathers:


implicitly found in the Fathers of the Church in the parallelism between Eve and Mary (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140? - 202?);
Found in the more general terms about Mary: "holy", "innocent", "most pure", "intact", "immaculate" (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140?-202?; Ephraem, Syria, 306-373; Ambrose, Milan, 373-397);
Explicit language: Mary - free from original sin (Augustine, Hippo, 395-430 to Anselm, Normandy, 1033-1109);
Eastern Church:


celebrated a Feast of the Conception of Mary in the 8th to the 9th Century;
Western Church:


celebrated a Feast of the Conception of Mary in the 12th Century;
A record of the feast in the 11th Century in Great Britain; in the 12th Century in Normandy;
Record in many churches of a Feast of the Conception of Mary in France, Germany, Italy and Spain in the 12th Century (Bernard, Clairvaux, 1090-1153);
14th Century:


was noted for the opposition to the Immaculate Conception from some of the great doctors of scholasticism. The celebration of the feast was not denied though. The difficulty arose from the meaning of the universal redemption through Christ.
15th Century:


Franciscan theologians solved the difficulty--Christ, the most perfect mediator, preserved Mary from original sin by an equally perfect act of healing. Duns Scotus (Scotland, 1266-1308) explained that the Immaculate Conception came through God's application of the grace of Christ beforehand.
From 15th Century:


the Feast was universally celebrated; and christian piety introduced an oath to defend the belief in the Immaculate Conception to be taken not only by Religious, but also by non-Religious and at the Universities (e.g., Paris, 1497; Cologne, 1499; Vienna, 1501, etc.)
1854, Pope Pius IX, infallibly defined, ex cathedra:


"The Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and in view of the foreseen merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin."