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August 15 is the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, the mother of Jesus, into Heaven, body and soul. Though the Assumption was dogmatically defined in 1950 by Venerable Pope Pius XII in his apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, the traditional belief in the Assumption of Mary goes back to the earliest days of the Church. Originally, the feast was called the "Dormition" or falling asleep of Mary, and is still referred to as such by our Eastern Orthodox brethren. Here are some passages from ancient sources that indicate that this belief existed from antiquity and was widespread. The first is...

“[Gabriel] came to [Mary] and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’” (v. 28). - Luke 1:26–38 In the history of Christian theology, we often see that theological error sometimes sparks a response that goes to the extreme in the other direction. For example, the theological liberalism popular at the end of the nineteenth through the beginning of the twentieth century essentially ignored the transcendent lordship of God and focused entirely on His immanent presence. The Lord was made such a part of this world that He could not be distinguished from it. This error motivated the...

In Captains Courageous, with Spencer Tracey, Freddy Batholomew is a blowhard millionaire's son who is socially, poorly adjusted. He uses his father's incredible wealth, to bully his classmates and even his teacher, but he's roundly disliked, and ostracized. While on an ocean liner, he unsuccessfully tries to impress some other boys by eating 5 ice cream sodas. When he has to throw up, to escape the mocking boys, he runs into a lifeboat area to evade their ridicule while purging his overindulgence, and manages to fall overboard into the ocean. Instances of people falling overboard into the open ocean are...

The Christmas story begins in the town of Nazareth nine months before the birth of Jesus. Now, if any narrative ever cried out for attention to detail it is this one, so it’s worth taking a good look at this little town and what it might tell us about the nature and character of God. Nazareth is much more widely known today than it ever was in Jesus’ day. It is not among the sixty-three villages of Galilee mentioned in the Hebrew Talmud or the forty-five mentioned by first-century Jewish historian Josephus, who knew the area well. This was an...

How did the Holy House take off from its foundations and reappear intact about 2,000 miles away, where it remains to this day?At a conference organized by the “Amici del Timone” Cultural Center in Staggia Senese, Italy, titled “The Story of the Incredible Move of the House of Mary of Nazareth to Loreto,” a topic was developed which challenges engineering.Indeed, the Holy House, birthplace of Our Lady and where the Archangel Gabriel announced to her the Incarnation, has been for many centuries in the town of Loreto (Santa Casa di Loreto), in the Marche region of Italy, facing the Adriatic...

White Double “AMONG THE MOST STRIKING PROOFS of the infinite love of our Redeemer is this, that, at a moment in which the love of the faithful was growing cold, the Divine Love proposed himself as the object of special veneration and worship, and the precious treasure of the Church was opened to enrich with indulgences the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge … In that Sacred Heart we must place all our hope, from that Heart ask and expect our salvation.” The great devotion to the...

White Double of the Second Class IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, even amidst their many divergences, the so-called Reformers agreed in utterly rejecting all the honors paid by the Catholic Church to the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the grounds that such veneration of the Mother detracted from the supreme worship due to her Divine Son. Four centuries have more than sufficed to show the result of so doing: the Son has followed the Mother! The descendants of those who refused to Mary the title and rights of Theotokos,—Mother of God—refuse to Jesus the title of Son of God in the...

White Double of the Second Class O ALL YE THAT PASS by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow! Is this, then, the first cry of that sweet babe whose coming brought such pure joy to our earth? Is the standard of suffering to be so soon unfurled over the cradle of such lovely innocence? Yet the heart of mother Church has not deceived her; this feast, coming at such a time, is ever the answer to that question of the expectant human race: What shall this child be? The Savior to...

“Praise and glory be to thee, O holy Trinity, who hast brought us all to this day’s solemnity. Praise be to thee also, O holy Mother of God, scepter of the orthodox faith: through thee the Cross triumphs, and man is called back to heaven; through thee the idols are overthrown, and the nations are brought to repentance.” Such words as these, which the Church borrows from her doctors to close the bright Octave, were doubtless sung in prophecy by the angels around the new-born babe Mary. And such, in the light of the ages since elapsed, must needs...

HOW BEAUTIFUL are thy first steps, O prince’s daughter! Our eyes are never weary of contemplating in thee the marvel of harmonious sweetness united to the strength of an army. Blessed child, continue to grow in grace; may thy course be prosperous; may thy royalty be strengthened and established. But the Church will not wait till thou be grown up, to sing to thee her beautiful antiphon: Rejoice O Virgin Mary; thou alone hast destroyed all heresies throughout the world. Heresy, Satan’s denial of what God affirms by his Christ, this is the great struggle, or rather the only...

“WHO IS SHE that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?” Such is thy growth, O Mary! Not the holiest life, were it even of patriarchal duration, will ever attain the degree of progress made under the influence of divine power by the soul of the most pure Virgin, in these few days elapsed since her coming on earth. First, there is the progress of her intellect: not subject to the obscurity which envelopes the minds of all men at their entrance into the world,...

White Greater Double “And the Virgin’s name was Mary. Let us speak a little about this name, which signifies Star of the sea, and which so well befits the Virgin Mother. Rightly is she likened to a star: for as a star emits its ray without being spoilt, so the Virgin brought forth her Son without receiving any injury; the ray takes nought from the brightness of the star, nor the Son from his Mother’s integrity. This is the noble star risen out of Jacob, whose ray illumines the whole world, whose splendor shines in the heavens, penetrates the...

Red Simple “DIMITTE ME, jam enim ascendit aurora; let me go for it is break of day;” such were the words which put an end to the struggle between the Angel and the Patriarch on the banks of the torrent. Blessed dawn, which triumphed over God himself! How long had been that night, during which the human race had been struggling by its supplications and tears! Ever since the fall, the Angel of justice had been guarding the entrance to the true land of promise; at every turn he was to be found, resisting in his inexorable vengeance poor,...

White Double of the Second Class (with a Simple Octave) LET US CELEBRATE THE NATIVITY of the Virgin Mary; let us adore her Son, Christ our Lord. Such is the invitation addressed to us today by the Church. Let us hearken to her call; let us enter into her overflowing joy. The Bridegroom is at hand, for his throne is now set up on earth; yet a little while, and he will appear in the diadem of our human nature, wherewith his Mother is to crown him on the day of the joy of his heart, and of ours....

NOVENA IN HONOR OF THE SEVEN SORROWS OF MARY (Beginning 6 September) (Besides the indulgences granted for every novena in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Pius IX, Pope Leo XIII on January 27, 1888, granted that all the faithful may gain, on the third Sunday in September, being the second feast of the Seven Sorrows of Mary [the other is observed on the Friday before Palm Sunday], a plenary indulgence as often as they visit, after confession and communion, a church where the Archconfraternity of the Seven Sorrows is canonically established, and pray there for the intentions...

The Octave of the Assumption (The Immaculate Heart of Mary);Commemoration of Saints Timothy, Hippolytus, and Symphorian, Martyrs White Double of the Second Class HE ALONE WHO COULD UNDERSTAND Mary’s holiness could appreciate her glory. But Wisdom, who presided over the formation of the abyss, has not revealed to us the depth of that ocean, beside which all the virtues of the just and all the graces lavished upon them are but streamlets. Nevertheless, the immensity of grace and merit, whereby the Blessed Virgin’s supernatural perfection stands quite apart from all others, gives us a right to conclude that she...

White Double of the Second Class FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL the Greeks have celebrated the feast of St. Joachim on the day following our Lady’s birthday. The Maronites kept it on the day after the Presentation in November, and the Armenians on the Tuesday after the Octave of the Assumption of the Mother of God. The Latins at first did not keep his feast. Later on it was admitted and celebrated sometimes on the day after the Octave of the Nativity, September 16th, sometimes on the day following the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, December 9th. Thus both East and...

Violet   WHAT IS THIS AURORA before which the brightest constellations pale? Laurence, who has been shining in the August heavens as an incomparable star, is well nigh eclipsed, and becomes but the humble satellite of the Queen of Saints, whose triumph is preparing beyond the clouds. Mary stayed on earth after her Son’s Ascension, in order to give birth to his Church; but she could not remain forever in exile. Yet she was not to take her flight to heaven until this new fruit of her maternity had acquired the growth and strength which it belongs to a...

Saint Alphonsus Mary Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church; Saint Stephen I, Pope and Martyr White Double YESTERDAY WE ADMIRED, in Peter and the Machabees, the substructure of the palace built by Wisdom in time to endure for eternity. Today, in conformity with the divine ways of that Wisdom, who in her playing reaches from end to end, we re suffered to contemplate the progress of the glorious building, to behold the summit of the work, the last row of stones actually laid. Now, summit and foundation, the work is all one; the materials are all priceless: witness...

White Double “THREE SAINTS,” said our Lord to St. Bridget of Sweden, "have been more pleasing to me than all others: Mary my mother, John the Baptist, and Mary Magdalene." The Fathers tell us that Magdelene is a type of the Gentile Church called from the depth of sin to perfect holiness; and indeed, better than any other, she personifies both the wanderings and the love of the human race, espoused by the Word of God. Like the most illustrious characters of the law of grace, she has her antitype in past ages. Let us follow the history of...