The Most Holy Virgin Mary

After the ascension of her Son and the descent of the Holy Spirit, this august Queen of the universe remained for another twenty-three years and a few months on earth, that is to say until the seventy-second year of her age, and the fifty-seventh year of the Savior. It is true that this opinion is not followed by everyone, and that there are seven or eight others reported on this day by Tamayo Salazar, in his martyrology of Spain, and supported by various authors; but it is the one that Cardinal Baronius judges the most probable, and which is, in effect, the most consistent with what we know for certain about the chronology of the travels of Saint Paul and Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, who were in Jerusale Jérusalem Holy city where the Cross was lost and subsequently recovered. m at the time of the passing of the Blessed Virgin. One might be astonished that Our Lord, who had so much respect and love for her, and who wished her all the good that such a Son could wish for such a Mother, did not take her with him when he ascended into heaven, and that he left her for so long in the miseries and calamities of this life, separated from his sensible presence and deprived of the glory that her entirely holy actions and her sorrows at the foot of the cross had so justly earned her; but he had great reasons for not taking her so soon into heaven; for: 1° by this delay, he gave her the opportunity to increase her merits infinitely and to win a crown incomparably more beautiful and more brilliant than the one she would have had if she had died at the time of the Ascension. Indeed, in the twenty-three years that she survived, she was not for a moment without acting supernaturally in the full extent of her grace and with all the perfection with which she could act: which acquired for her treasures of glory that cannot be understood; 2° by this delay he provided for the needs of his nascent Church, by leaving it, in the person of his august Virgin, a Mother to raise it, a Governess to lead it, a Mistress to instruct it, a Model to form it and serve as an example to it, and a Queen to encourage and strengthen it in the midst of the persecutions of the Jews and the Gentiles. Thus, it is she who encouraged the Apostles, who revealed to the holy Evangelists the greatest secrets of the hidden life of her Son, who encouraged the first martyrs, and who from then on inspired in virgins and continent widows the love of purity; and one cannot believe how much her presence served, in these beginnings of Christianity, to support the evangelical workers, to edify the new converts, to regulate good morals, and to establish true piety. Saint Anselm adds that, by this delay, Our Lord prepared for his Mother a triumph much more brilliant and glorious than it would have been before; either because at the end of this time she was laden with more victories, the Christian faith having already been published through her care in the principal parts of the earth, or because there were then more Saints in heaven, to come to receive her and to give her the welcome that was due to her eminent dignity as Mother of God and Sovereign of the world.

Assuming then, as a constant fact, that it was highly appropriate not only that her entry into heaven should be separated from the Ascension of her Son, but also that it should be deferred by several years, to render it more brilliant and magnificent, piety now obliges us to make a serious reflection on the entire sequence and circumstances of such a glorious event. There are eight principal things we must consider therein: 1st, the precious passing of the Blessed Virgin, to which some Fathers of the Church, out of respect, give only the name of sleep; 2nd, the glorification of her soul at the moment of her passing; 3rd, the burial of her body in the village of Gethsem Gethsémani Site of the Virgin's tomb in the Valley of Josaphat. ane; 4th, her resurrection and the reunion of her body and soul; 5th, her assumption in body and soul into heaven; 6th, her coronation by the hands of the most adorable Trinity; 7th, the empire and absolute power that were given to her, the extent of her influences, the strength of her protection, and the necessity we have of her aid to avoid the snares of Satan and to arrive at the port of salvation; 8th, finally, the holy ways to honor her and to merit her friendship and assistance. These are also eight points that can compose her octave and serve as subjects of meditation during the eight days when the Church celebrates her feast.

As for the passing of our Queen, there is no room for doubt. She was worthy not to die; yet she did not fail to taste death. It is true that some Fathers of the Church formerly testified that they were not certain of it and did not wish to determine anything, such as Saint Epiphanius, in Heresy LXXVIII; he says that he does not wish to decide whether the Mother of God passed through death, or whether she remained immortal; but the Church clearly says that she died, through these words of her secret prayer for the Mass of this day: *Quam etsi pro conditione carnis migrasse cognoscimus*: "We acknowledge that she died according to the condition of the flesh." All doctors hold this proposition as certain; one cannot now combat it without temerity. The entire difficulty is to know why and by what title she died; for it is certain that death was the punishment for sin, and that it only entered the world by that path. Through one man, says Saint Paul, sin entered the world, and through sin death, and, in this manner, death spread to all men. Now, the Blessed Virgin neither contracted nor committed sin: whence comes it then that she was subject to death? It is true that Jesus Christ, her Son, who not only did not commit any sin but was also impeccable by nature, because of the substantial union of his humanity with the infinite holiness of the Divine Being, did not fail to be mortal and to die effectively on the cross; but there is a great difference between the Son and the Mother; for Jesus Christ died because he had taken upon himself all the sins of the world, because he had accepted to bear all the penalty thereof, and because, as Savior and Redeemer of the human race, he had to be punished for the crimes of all men; but, as for the Blessed Virgin, she was not charged with our sins, her death was not a means that God had chosen for our redemption; and, although some holy Doctors give her the name of Redemptrix, it is not that she redeemed us by her pains and merits, but only because she contributed, through her maternity, to the incomparable work of our redemption. Why then did she die, and for what reason was she engaged to die?

We answer that she did not die for sin, nor by sin, since she was never guilty of any fault, and sin could have no power over her; but she died because, on one hand, she was of a mortal nature, being composed of flesh and bone and the four primary substances whose mutual combat is the source of corruption and death; and because, on the other, Our Lord did not judge it appropriate to exempt her from dying, as he might have exempted men in the state of original justice; but only to give her a chosen and precious death, which did not come from old age, nor from illness, nor from external violence, but from a more noble cause: the vehemence of pure love. Sin, nevertheless, was the occasion of her death; for, if Adam had not sinned, either she would never have been in the world, according to the doctrine of Saint Thomas, who says that: "without the crime of the first man, the divine Word would not have become incarnate"; or, if she had been, she would not have passed through death, any more than other men, and it is in this sense that Saint Paul says that, through sin, death entered this world: which is true, not only of the death of sinful men, but also of the death of Jesus Christ and that of Mary who did not sin.

Furthermore, Our Lord did not give his Mother this exemption that he could have given her, and of which she was very worthy for several excellent reasons: 1st, so that she might have more resemblance to him in dying and rising again as he died and rose again; 2nd, so that she would not be deprived of the inestimable merit of the sacrifice of her own life, which was all the more elevated as her life was the most excellent of all lives, after that of God; that she had in no way deserved to lose it; that, according to some Doctors, her Son offered her not to die, and that finally she chose death in conformity with his, with a love and fervor that cannot be understood; 3rd, so that by dying she might soften and diminish the pain that we all have in dying. Indeed, why should we not willingly receive the just sentence of death that has been given against us, after Mary, our Princess and our Queen; Mary, the spotless Mirror of all holiness; Mary, the Mother of our God, did not wish to be exempt from this general misery of our nature, and, though owing nothing to death, she did not fail to be subject to it? Must we not also recognize thereby that death is not as great an evil as we imagine, since if it were as bad as one conceives, God would not have given it to the two most dear and precious persons he ever had on earth, we mean Jesus and Mary; 4th, so that, as Jesus Christ had given us the example of the most constant and heroic of all violent deaths, Mary might give us the example of the most holy of all tranquil and natural deaths; and that, having taught us how to live well, she might also teach us how to die well, that is to say, to die with submission to the will of God and with gladness, to die with a spirit pure and detached from all things of the earth, and to die with a heart burning and consumed with the ardors of holy love; 5th, so that by her death she might become the Asylum, the Advocate, and the Patroness of all the dying; that we might have more boldness to invoke her at this last hour and more confidence in her goodness, and that she herself might be more inclined to assist us therein. A great soul of this time says to have known, by revelation, that in reward for the choice she made to die when Our Lord offered to transport her all alive into heaven, without having tasted death, she received a sovereign power to assist at the article of death those persons who would invoke her, and to procure for them the grace of a holy death. Let us add to all these reasons that Our Lord did not exempt her from death, so that by dying she might establish and confirm the mysteries of our faith and that she might destroy the heresies that are contrary to it; for there have been born since that time heretics, the Manichaeans and the Collyridians, who have denied the truth of the flesh of Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Virgin, and have attributed to them only bodies of a celestial substance, or bodies of air. Now, there is nothing that overturns these heresies so solidly as the death of the Blessed Virgin, since it shows that she was of a fragile and mortal nature like us, and that, although she did not have the sin and the spiritual evils of the first man, she was nevertheless his daughter and had a flesh similar to his.

It was therefore decreed in the counsel of God that the Blessed Virgin would not reach the glory destined for her without tasting death; Our Lord, some time before, sent her one of the first angels of his court to announce to her that the moment of her reward was near; it is believed that it was Saint Gabriel, the one who had announced to her the Incarnation of the divine Word in her womb, and to whom, according to Saint Ildefonsus, *tota illius causa commissa esse prædicatur*: "The charge of all that belonged to her had been given." One may also be persuaded with Simeon Metaphrastes, Cedrenus, and Nicephorus, that he had a palm in his hand to mark the triumph of which her virtues had made her worthy, and that he was accompanied by several other celestial spirits, whose visit and conversation were in no way new or extraordinary to her. As since the Ascension of her Son, her life had been but a life of languor, and she continually asked to be reunited with the one she had conceived and carried in her chaste womb, one cannot understand the joy and consolation with which she received this blessed message from heaven: she was then in Jerusalem in the house of the Cenacle, where so many mysteries of our religion were accomplished, and which has since been changed into a church, called Holy Zion, and she was praying there in her oratory for the conversion of the world and the propagation of the faith. Her response was short but admirable, since it is believed that she said the same words she had spoken at her Annunciation: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word." She invited the angels at the same time to help her thank the sovereign Lord for the infinite number of graces she had received from his goodness, and having raised herself to God by a new effort of love, she reiterated the sacrifice of her life that she had already made an infinite number of times. Then, she warned Saint John of what was soon to happen, and Saint John informed all the faithful of Jerusalem, in order to prepare them for this loss and to engage them to profit as much as they could from the rest of the moments they still had to enjoy the presence of their dear mistress. One cannot believe the sorrow that this holy Apostle and the entire Church of the city and its surroundings felt. It is not that they envied Mary the happiness with which she was about to be filled; but, knowing that it was a good that could not fail her, they would have much desired that she had not been taken from them so soon. It is said that several creatures devoid of reason, such as birds and other animals, and even some insensible creatures, testified in their own way a keen regret for this departure; but, since the ancient authors do not speak of it, we shall say nothing of it.

However, Our Lord, to give his most holy Mother a final consolation on earth, wished to show her once more before her death the Apostles who were scattered throughout the world for the preaching of the Gospel, with the most famous of their disciples. Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, in his book *On the Divine Names*, chapter III, says that they gathered in Jerusalem to see this blessed body which gave birth to Life, and which received God in its womb: *Quod vita principium dedit, et Deum ineffabili modo suscepit*. And he names, among those who were there, Saint James, cousin of the Lord, and Saint Peter, the sover eign chief o saint Pierre First pope, present at the death and funeral of the Virgin Mary. f the theologians, that is to say, of the preachers of the divine word, with the other princes of the ecclesiastical hierarchy; furthermore, Saint Hierotheus, Saint Timothy, and several of their holy brothers, of the number of whom he himself was. Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem, Saint Andrew of Crete, Saint John Damascene, and other Fathers add that the Apostles were transported there in a cloud and by the ministry of angels: it is not that they could not have gone there by ordinary means, being warned in good time of the time of the Virgin's passing, but God sometimes does in favor of his friends in a miraculous way what he could do without a miracle; thus, although he could send someone from Babylon to Daniel, to feed him in the lions' den which was nearby, he nevertheless made a holy prophet named Habakkuk come to him from Judea, through the air, who brought him the dinner he had prepared for his reapers, and, although he could lead Saint Philip, the deacon, to Azotus, by the path of other travelers, he nevertheless snatched him suddenly from the company of the eunuch of the Queen of Ethiopia, whom he had just baptized, and transported him miraculously by an unknown route to that city. As for the holy Disciples who were present at the death of Our Lady, we cannot assure that they were brought there in the same way, and it is more likely that they went there by an interior movement of the Holy Spirit, which urged them to make this journey without revealing to them the true subject.

We will not stop to describe the various movements that these divine men felt when they knew they were gathered to assist at the death of their dear Mistress. She received them with wonderful joy and humility, and raising her eyes and her spirit toward heaven, she thanked God for the grace he was granting her in letting her see these worthy instruments of his power and these glorious preachers of his Gospel. It is said that she obliged them to give her their blessing, and to suffer her to kiss their feet, in order to prepare herself by this act of humility for the immensity of the glory to which she was about to be raised. If the Apostles consented to it, it was only after many excuses and with a holy reluctance. The faithful of Jerusalem flocked to this spectacle with lighted torches, odors, and precious perfumes, and mingled their groans and sighs with those of the apostolic troop. Mary consoled them with an admirable discourse, and, having given them in her turn her more than maternal blessing, she exhorted them to continue to work with courage for the establishment of the Church, which she called her Mother, and of which she recognized herself as a member and a daughter; she also promised to assist them powerfully in heaven, and to employ all her credit with her Son to obtain for them the abundance of graces that were necessary for them to discharge their functions worthily, and to complete the work of their own sanctification. She did not forget to make her testament either; but what testament could she make, she who had stripped herself of all things, and who, although Queen of heaven and earth and Sovereign of the universe, possessed neither gold, nor silver, nor income, nor inheritances in this world? Nevertheless, she made one by word of mouth, to place her soul in the hands of her God, to leave her body to the earth, to seal anew the renunciation she had made of all things here below, to bequeath to the Christians who would be devout to her the price of her tears and of all the holy actions of her life, and to pray Saint John to give to two girls who had assisted her, the few clothes she had used, and which they would find after her death: they were only two tunics.

She was in no way ill, and although she was seventy-two years old, there appeared in her no sign of old age, her face having always maintained its former beauty. One could even see a new radiance, which clearly showed that the soul dwelling within already felt the approach of eternity. One must not, therefore, imagine that she was bedridden, nor that the duties ordinarily rendered to the sick were performed for her. She did not receive the sacrament of Penance nor that of Extreme Unction, because these sacraments have the effect of remitting sins and the Blessed Virgin was without any sin: but one must not doubt that she received the sacrament of the Eucharist as Viaticum, just as she received it every day as the nourishment of her soul: one may believe that she did so at the Mass of Saint Peter.

Finally, the moment of her passing having come, Jesus Christ, her beloved Son, according to the testimony of Saint John Damascene, Metaphrastes, and Nicephorus, who learned it from ancient tradition, descended from heaven to earth, with the entire celestial court, to receive the sacred deposit of her blessed spirit. The Blessed Virgin then rendered to Him the most perfect adoration that He has ever received and shall ever receive on earth, and humbly kissed His feet. Our Lord told her that He had come to fetch her to share His glory with her and to place her in heaven, at His right hand, just as His Father had placed Him at the right hand of His divine Majesty. "Thy will be done!" replied Mary, "for a long time, my Son and my God, I have sighed for You, and nothing can be more agreeable to me than to follow You, and to be where You are for all eternity."

The angels, meanwhile, intoned a celestial canticle with a melody that was heard by all those present, although not all saw Our Lord: "which is all the more credible," says Sophronius, in the sermon on the Assumption, "that we find similar graces in the histories of other Saints." During this canticle, the adorable Mary, bowing modestly upon her couch, and having placed herself in the posture in which she wished to be buried, repeated these words: *Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum*: "Be it done unto me according to thy word," and added those which her Son had pronounced on the cross: *In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum*: "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." Thus, with hands joined, eyes fixed upon her Beloved, and heart all ablaze with His love, she rendered her soul to Him, to be transported into His bosom, to the dwelling of eternal happiness.

"This death," says Saint Damascene, "was without any pain; just as her childbirth, when she had brought Jesus Christ into the world, had been without pain. Thus it had no other cause than the vehemence of her love, of which her nature could no longer bear the great effort. The power of God had sustained her until then in the midst of this furnace, which had preserved her life; but this power having ceased its operation for a moment, she ceased to live at the same time; in a word, her soul departed from her body like a very ardent flame that detaches itself from its matter to fly off into its sphere." Other Saints have died in love, that is to say, while actually loving God; but she, besides dying in love, died by love, and it is love that took away her natural life to give her a life of glory. The angels continued to sing hymns to her praise, and the place was filled with an odor so agreeable that the whole house was perfumed by it.

Let us now return to her sacred body, which we left on its couch surrounded by the Apostles and apostolic men. Grief, groans, and tears prevented these holy personages from opening their mouths for some time; but, having recovered themselves, they began to sing hymns and canticles to the praise of God and their divine Mistress. A portion of the Angels had remained near this precious relic to celebrate the funeral rites. They also continued the melodious chant they had begun before her passing, and it was undoubtedly a most charming music to hear, on one side, these celestial intelligences employing all their skill to testify to the joy they felt for the glory to which Mary had just been raised; and, on the other, the choir of Apostles, disciples, and faithful raising their voices with all their strength to support the harmony of these singers of paradise. Saint John Damascene says that, after their initial duties, they had the boldness to kiss these precious limbs which had been the animated sanctuary of the Word made flesh, and that the same liberty having been granted to several sick persons, they received an instant and perfect healing; that the blind recovered their sight, the deaf their hearing, the mute their speech, and the lame the use of their limbs. He adds that the holy body was, according to custom, washed, embalmed, wrapped in shrouds, and placed with great reverence on its bed, which they strewed with flowers and other very pleasant scents. Simeon Metaphrastes repeats the same thing; but we cannot refrain from reporting here what we find on this subject among the revelations of a great soul of the 17th century who died in the odor of sanctity: Saint Peter and the other Apostles, having judged it appropriate that the body of our Queen be washed and embalmed, withdrew from her chamber and sent in the two virgins who had followed her during her life to perform this duty. These two maidens entered, but the holy body then became so luminous that they could not perceive it: they returned to the Apostles to tell them what was happening; and they knew by this, and by a voice from heaven, that this pledge of eternity was not to be uncovered or touched by anyone. Thus, it was placed with its garments in the coffin to be carried to the earth.

There was never a funeral pomp so holy, nor accompanied by so many wonders, as that of our adorable Princess. The Apostles themselves carried the coffin through the middle of the city to the place of burial, which was in the village of Gethsemane, in the valley of Jehoshaphat. All the faithful accompanied them in procession, with torches in their hands. The Jews, as animated as they were against the Christians, then received an impression of fear and respect, which prevented them from insulting them and disturbing the ceremony. There were even several who joined them, and who swelled this sacred troop, following the new Ark of the Covenant that was being led to the place of its rest. All the holy Fathers whom we have already cited say unanimously that the Angels made their procession at the same time, and that they preceded, accompanied, and followed the body of their Sovereign, singing canticles of joy in a sensible manner that was heard by those present. They add that a supernatural odor emanated from the sacred limbs of the Virgin, which perfumed all the places through which they passed, and that the procession was rendered illustrious by many new miracles: no sick person presented themselves there without receiving healing, and several Jews also converted upon seeing so many wonders. Saint Damascene recounts: « There was one of the priestly race who had the temerity to throw himself upon the venerable bed w Saint Damascène Church Father cited for his commentary on the birth of Mary. here this divine relic was being carried, in order to make it fall to the ground; but his hands were miraculously cut off and separated from the rest of his body. Such a visible vengeance filled him with confusion and pain. He recognized the greatness of his fault, confessed it publicly, and asked for pardon, and Saint Peter, having ordered him to bring the arms near his severed hands, they rejoined immediately; which was the cause of his embracing the faith of Jesus Christ ». Metaphrastes and Nicephorus give the same account, which they drew from Saint Damascene or from an immemorial tradition, from which even Saint Damascene had learned it.

Finally, this inestimable treasure was deposited with very deep respect in the tomb that had been prepared for her, and it was covered with a large stone, so that she who had so perfectly imitated the virtues and actions of Jesus Christ, and who had died in conformity with His death, might also resemble Him in the humility of her burial. After the ceremony, the company withdrew to Jerusalem, but the Angels did not leave this place that was so dear to them. Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in his discourse to the Emperor Marcian and the Empress Pulcheria, his wife, informs us that they remained there for three more days, ceaselessly continuing the harmonious singing of hymns and canticles that they had begun from the moment of their Queen's passing. The Apostles themselves did not abandon it entirely; but, relieving one another, they came there alternately to support the fervor and devotion of these celestial chanters. At the end of three days, Saint Thomas , who was th saint Thomas The Apostle who arrived late, whose desire to see Mary revealed the empty tomb. e only one of the Apostles still living who had not been present at this sacred ceremony, arrived from India or Ethiopia, where his zeal had led him to announce the Gospel, and, having learned all that had happened, he desired to see the face of his august Mistress uncovered one more time. The other Apostles found it very appropriate to grant him this consolation, doubting not that his delay was mysterious, and that God had spared him for some great reason that was unknown to them. They gathered therefore around the sepulcher, and, after some prayers, they moved the stone aside: but, instead of finding the body they were seeking, they found only the linens and the garments with which it had been clothed, and, at the same time, they were embalmed with an incomparable fragrance that emanated from the depths of the vault. They saw clearly that no one on earth could have taken this precious pledge, since the Angels and they themselves had always guarded it, and there was no mark of opening on the stone, and the shrouds they saw there, without cut or confusion, showed well that in this there had been no theft or abduction; they thought therefore that Our Lord, who had willed to be born from the womb of Mary without violating the seal of her virginity, had also willed to preserve her body after her death from all corruption, and to honor it with a glorious and immortal life before the general resurrection of the human race. It is in this way that Saint John Damascene also speaks of it, after the Patriarch Juvenal: and the Church has deferred so much to this account that she has inserted it into her breviary, on the fourth day of the octave of this feast.

Thus we know that the body of the Blessed Virgin was not left in the earth to serve as food for worms, and to return to ashes like the bodies of other men, but it was reunited to her soul to participate in her glory and to receive therein a heavenly life exempt from all alteration. Regarding the first point, we find no one among ecclesiastical writers who has ever doubted it, and we have very beautiful proofs of this in the book of the Assumption, attributed to Saint Augustine, and printed among his works in Volume IX: "We know," says the author, "that it was said to Adam: Thou art dust and into dust thou shalt return; but we also know that it was said to Eve: Thou shalt bring forth thy children in pain, and thou shalt be under the power of a husband. If, therefore, Mary was exempt from this second curse, having conceived without corruption and brought forth without any pain Him who came to deliver us from the servitude of sin, why should we not believe that she was also exempt from the first, and that she tasted death in such a way that the consequences of death did not take place in her person? Moreover, it is certain that rot and resolution into dust is the final reproach of human nature: and it is no less constant that Jesus Christ could preserve his Mother from it, just as he preserved the three young Israelites from the burning flames of the furnace of Babylon, saved Daniel from the lions' den, and Jonah from the belly of the whale. Who, then, could think that He, who commands children so expressly to honor their father and mother, would have left his own exposed to this reproach without giving her the privilege of incorruption which he could so easily give her?" One must only remember that she enclosed for nine months in her womb the divine Word made flesh, that she pressed him a thousand times to her breast, that she nourished him with her milk, and that she carried him in his infancy to all the places where divine Providence willed that he be carried: for what balm is more precious and more capable of defending against all rot than the flesh of Jesus Christ, which gives life to the world and is the true seed of immortality! "No," concludes this Father, "I cannot say and I cannot believe that the body from which Jesus took flesh was delivered to worms to be their food: if anyone contradicts my sentiment, as he cannot take away from Jesus the power to preserve the Virgin from corruption, let him show then that he ought not to have done it and that it was not fitting: but, this is assuredly what no one will ever be able to show." We have not reported, word for word, the sayings of this author who dwells at great length on this subject; but we have made a summary that contains the full force of his reasons.

Regarding the glorious resurrection of our adorable Mistress, we know that some ancient writers doubted it, or at least testified that they wished to pronounce nothing on the subject: such as the author of a Sermon on the Assumption, attributed first to Saint Jerome, and then to Sophronius, a contemporary of this holy Doctor, but which is by neither the one nor the other, and Usuard, a monk of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in Paris, in his martyrology, where he says: "The body of the most holy Virgin not being found on earth, the Church, which is wise in its judgments, has preferred to ignore with piety what divine Providence has done with it, rather than to advance anything apocryphal on this subject: and for this reason it has not called this feast the Assumption of the glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, but only her sleep, *Dormitio*." Adon, Archbishop of Vienne, also imitated his conduct in his chronicle and his martyrology. But it is certain, as Cardinal Baronius says very well in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology, and in the first volume of his Annals, that the Church inclines entirely, and has always inclined toward the sentiment, that the Blessed Virgin is resurrected and that she is in body and soul in heaven. For, first, it has never used to express today's feast the word sleep, which Usuard and Adon use, nor those of passing, of birth into heaven, and others similar which it uses for the feast of other Saints; but it has always used the word Assumption, which properly falls upon the whole person and signifies her elevation in body and soul: one can see it in the Roman Ordo, in the Sacramentary of Saint Gregory, and in the most ancient calendars, rituals, missals, martyrologies, and breviaries for the use of Rome.

Furthermore, it proposes to its children, in the lessons of this octave, the sermons and treatises of the Fathers, where the mystery of the resurrection of Our Lady is declared in express terms: such as the Oration of Saint John Damascene, of which we have already spoken, and a Sermon of Saint Bernard, where he says that human nature is today elevated in Mary above the immortal spirits. Finally, this truth is so strongly imprinted in the soul of all the faithful, and so generally received by the whole Christian world, that one must not doubt that the Holy Spirit, who has not yet wished to make it an article of faith, nor to express it distinctly in the holy scriptures, is nevertheless its author, and has himself secretly inspired it into the heart of his Church.

There are even passages of the Old Testament that seem to have predicted this great mystery, as when the King-Prophet says to Our Lord: "Arise, O Lord, into your resting place, you and the Ark which you have sanctified"; without doubt, by this Ark, one can understand the holy humanity of Jesus Christ which was sanctified by the ineffable anointing of the Divinity; nevertheless, it is constant that one can also understand the glorious Virgin Mary, whom the holy Fathers continually call the new Ark, the golden Ark, and the Ark of the Covenant; so that, by this passage, the Prophet invites Our Lord not only to ascend into heaven with his resurrected and glorious body, but also to transport there this animated Ark where he took birth, and which was for nine months his most agreeable dwelling. What he wishes and asks for in this place, he marks the execution of in Psalm XIV, where, speaking again to Our Lord, he tells him "that the Queen has been placed at his right hand, with a golden garment, and all surrounded by diversities": for, who is this Queen, if not the august Mary whom the Church calls the Queen of angels and the Sovereign of the world; and what is this golden garment, embellished with so many diversities, if not her glorious body, clothed in the inestimable dowries of immortality? This is how the author of the book of *Sanctissima Deipara*, which is found among the works of Saint Athanasius, explains it.

The holy Fathers and the doctors who have treated this matter are also of this sentiment, such as, among the Greeks, Saint Andrew of Crete, Saint Germanus of Constantinople, Saint John Damascene, the Emperor Leo, called the Wise, Michael Syncellus, and Michael Glycas; and, among the Latins, Saint Gregory of Tours, Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Bernard, Saint Thomas, Saint Bonaventure, Hugh and Richard of Saint-Victor, Jean Gerson, Saint Bernardine of Siena, Saint Antoninus, and all the more recent theologians: which makes Cardinal Baronius say, in his Annals, that one cannot, without great temerity, teach the contrary, and take away from the sacred Virgin the glory of having been resurrected from the dead and of reigning in body and soul with her Son. Also, if her body had not been reunited to her soul, without doubt Our Lord would not have deprived her of the honor that the Church renders to the relics of other Saints; and he would have also exposed it to the public veneration of the faithful; since, from the time of her death until now, no church has boasted of possessing her sacred body nor any of its members, but only something of her garments; one must necessarily conclude that it has been reunited to her soul, and that it enjoys the happiness of immortality. Moreover, several holy doctors believe that the Saints who resurrected at the time of the Savior's resurrection, and who then appeared to various persons in Jerusalem, did not die a second time, but that they ascended in body and soul with him into heaven. If that is so, can one refuse this same prerogative to Mary? What! Would the Queen and the Sovereign wait for the resurrection, while those who recognize themselves as her humble subjects already enjoy it? What! Would one see in heaven glorious bodies among the Saints, while the Queen of all the Saints would not yet have any other glory than that of her soul? Furthermore, the soul naturally desires its body: the soul of the Blessed Virgin, after its separation from the body, must therefore have had a natural inclination to be reunited to it. Is it believable that Our Lord did not satisfy this inclination? He could satisfy it, since he is all-powerful, and this miracle was no more difficult, three days after her death, than at the end of all ages: if, therefore, he did not do it, it is because, being able to, he did not want to; but, how could he not have wanted to satisfy the inclination of her who had obeyed him in all things, who had always done his will, and who had loved him with the most excellent love with which a pure creature can love him: of her who had clothed him with her flesh, sustained him with her milk, nourished him by her labor, and assisted him on earth in all his needs. He loved her too tenderly, he held himself too obligated to her maternal cares, he had too many desires to acknowledge her affection, not to want for her a good that cost him so little, and that was so fitting to her merit. Let us say also that he was interested in wanting it for her; for, finally, one could say that he was not perfectly resurrected until Mary was resurrected, since the flesh of Mary was the principle of his, and formerly they had been but one and the same flesh. And then, does not the honor of the Mother fall back upon the Son? And is it not the glory of the Son to procure for his Mother all the advantages that he is capable of procuring for her? Finally, he says expressly in the Gospel that he wants the one who serves him to be where he himself will be: he therefore had, for a stronger reason, this good will for her who gave birth to him, and whom he does not blush to call his Mother; but as her merits are infinitely above those of his servants, while he defers until the end of the ages giving to the latter the full accomplishment of this happiness, he anticipated it for her, by placing her beside him to participate in the fullness of his greatness.

It would now be necessary to explain the manner in which this happy resurrection of our Queen took place; but can we not say of her what Saint Gregory the Great says of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that only the night in which it took place knew the mystery? Men were not witnesses of it, and their eyes were not strong enough to sustain its splendor. One asks if it took place in the tomb or in heaven, that is to say, if the soul of the Virgin descended into the sepulcher to take back her body there, or if her body was transported by the angels into heaven to be reunited there to her soul. Some authors of the 18th century have followed this second opinion. But the first is more certain; for there is no appearance that an inanimate body, and without any ornament of glory, was carried into that place which is destined only for spirits and for bodies clothed in immortality. It is therefore very likely that, when this body had been three days in the sepulcher, her blessed soul descended there in the company of Our Lord and an infinite number of angels, archangels, and other blessed ones of heaven, and, that having re-entered this body, she began again to animate it, by communicating to it a completely heavenly life and the four qualities that compose the glory and the felicity of bodies, we mean subtlety, agility, clarity, and immortality. We leave it to the piety of the faithful to imagine in what degree these qualities were given to her. For us, we can only say these words of Saint Bernard: that it was in the degree of which such a Mother was worthy, and which was fitting to the excellence and the liberality of such a Son: *Quo tanta Mater digna fuit, et qui tantum decuit Filium*. In a word, this bodily glory was proportioned to the glory of the soul, since it was born from it as from its principle. Now, we have said that the glory of the soul in Mary surpassed, without comparison, the glory of all the Angels and all the Saints together; one must therefore conclude that the glory, the radiance, the beauty, and the perfection that were given to her body were ineffable, and that they made of it a masterpiece more accomplished than the whole universe.

We would now wish to have the spirit and the pen of the seraphim to worthily describe the triumph of her Assumption, which is the principal subject of today's feast, and the most beautiful object of our contemplation and our respects. We have a beautiful figure of this in the triumph with which the Ark of the Covenant was transported by David into the city of Jerusalem, where the priests, the Levites, and the people made all sorts of musical instruments resound, and where the air echoed with the singing of psalms and hymns and a thousand acclamations of joy. We have another figure of it in the magnificence with which the Queen of Sheba entered the same city, to enjoy for some time the conversation of the wise Solomon. It is said of this queen that she entered with a numerous retinue and with infinite riches of gold, precious stones, and perfumes, to present them to Solomon; that, since then, one had not seen so many perfumes as she had brought, and that this prince, in gratitude, gave her all that she wanted and asked for, and much more than she herself had given her.

This is an image of what takes place in the triumph of the Assumption of our adorable Princess. She ascended with a numerous retinue, because she was accompanied by the entire heavenly court; she ascended with infinite riches, because she was laden with an inestimable treasure of virtues and merits; she presented them to the true Solomon, who is her Son, because she paid him homage as the one from whom she had received all these graces. One has not seen since such excellent perfumes, nor in such great numbers in paradise, because the merits of Mary are so pleasing to Jesus Christ that no action of the Saints has ever given him so much satisfaction. Finally, she received much more than she gave, because, as Saint Ildefonsus says: *Sicut est incomparable quod gessit, ita est incomprehensibile præmium gloriæ quod promeruit*; "just as what she has done for the glory of her God is incomparable, so the weight of the glory that she has merited and that has been given to her as a reward is incomprehensible."

But to explain distinctly the marvelous glory of this pomp, it must be noted that there are three things that make a triumph august and magnificent: 1st, the high deeds and perfections of the one who triumphs; 2nd, the splendor of the persons who accompany her; 3rd, the honors rendered to her in her procession and throughout the course of the same triumph. Now, all these things concur admirably to make the Assumption of the Virgin of inestimable price and value: for, in the first place, if we consider the merits of the one who triumphs, and the actions that have acquired this honor for her, there is nothing greater, more noble, and more brilliant. The friends of the Bridegroom, in the Song of Songs, represent them to us by three different acclamations, which include all the perfections of which a creature is capable. They say in the first: Who is this who comes up from the desert like a thin smoke, arising from the perfumes of myrrh, incense, and all kinds of scents? They say in the second: Who is this who advances like the dawn that begins to break, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun, and terrible as an army set in battle array? They say finally in the third: Who is this who rises from the desert, all filled with delights and leaning upon her Beloved? By the first, they represent to us her humility, her modesty, her devotion, her fervor, her perseverance in piety, her mercy, her liberality, and all her other edifying virtues. By the second, they signify to us the splendor of her purity, the eminence of her knowledge and wisdom, the greatness of her love for God, and the ardor of her zeal which makes her formidable to all the powers of the world and of hell. By the third, they express to us her perfect resemblance to her Son, the union she had with his divinity, and the ineffable sweetness she tasted in the enjoyment of this union. Thus, we have in these words a rich tableau of the beauties and perfections of our illustrious Triumphant one. But who could express the goods she has done in the world, the victories she has won, the favors with which she has filled all the human race, and the services she has rendered to God, her sovereign Lord? Is it not she who crushed the head of the ancient serpent, who repaired the evil that the first woman had caused, who gave us a Savior and a Deliverer, and who opened the gates of heaven to let those enter who had been banished from it? Is it not she who merited to be the refuge of sinners, the Advocate of the unhappy, the Dispenser of the treasures of God, the Mediatrix of our salvation, and the Channel through which all graces flow upon our souls? Oh! how perfect she is, how accomplished, how lovable, how worthy to triumph and to receive all the honors that can be made, below divine honors!

If the triumph of the Assumption is so elevated by the excellence of the one who triumphs, it is even more so by the splendor of the persons who accompany her: for we must persuade ourselves that Our Lord was the leader of this troop and that he himself led his Mother to the throne of glory that was prepared for her, following these words of the Canticle: *Quis est ista qua ascendit innixa super dilectum suum*? "Who is she who ascends leaning upon her Beloved?" and this is what raises in some way the pomp of the Assumption above that of the Ascension, because, in the Ascension, Our Lord was escorted and accompanied only by servants; but, in the Assumption, the glorious Virgin is accompanied by the sovereign Monarch of the world, who raises her by his virtue and sustains her by his power. It must not therefore be believed that she ascended to heaven by the ministry of the angels, although, out of honor, the angels surrounded her and served as her throne; but she ascended by the force of her agility, which is one of the dowries of beatitude, and by the virtue of her Son, who had given this agility to her in a sovereign perfection. Moreover, we must represent to ourselves that the entire heavenly court composed this illustrious trophy, that is to say, on one hand, all the choirs of angels, without excepting those who do not ordinarily leave from before the throne of God; and, on the other, all the orders of the Saints, that is to say, the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostolic Men, the Martyrs, the Virgins, and the whole troop of other Blessed ones. Finally, many doctors think that at this moment all of purgatory received a universal indulgence, and that there was not one of the souls who were then tormented there who was not delivered by the Virgin of Virgins, to make her triumph more glorious. This being so, who could conceive the magnificence of this pomp, and has one ever seen anything in this world that deserves to be called its shadow and image; for, if the glory of a single angel surpasses all the beauties that the industry of men can produce on earth, what shall we say of that which is born from the assembly of all these spirits and from the pleasant concert of all the Saints? What shall we say of the splendor and majesty of these two armies, of which one contains all the blessed intelligences, arranged by their hierarchies and their choirs; and the other comprises all the glorified men, ranked according to the order of their merit and the excellence of their aureole and their beatitude? Must we not exclaim, on this occasion, with the blessed Peter Damian: "O sublime day, a thousand times more brilliant than the sun, in which this royal Virgin was raised to the throne of God the Father and was placed in the seat of the most holy Trinity, where she is the continuous object of the admirations and desires of Paradise?"

Finally, what completes the splendor of this triumph are the honors that our adorable Princess received throughout her march until she was seated like the true Bathsheba beside her Son. The Christian reader will be able here to meditate on the praises, the blessings, the thanksgivings, and the applause that the choir of Angels and each order of Saints in particular gave her each day, when, rising above all the works of God, she passed successively through the midst of these holy troops: what was said to her by the Patriarchs who had asked for her with such insistence; the Prophets who had predicted her with such light; the Apostles already deceased and the Apostolic Men who had preached the divine maternity with such zeal; the Martyrs who had already shed their blood for the honor of her Son; the Virgins, who had so constantly imitated her innocence and virginal purity; in a word, all the blessed souls who knew that she was the Mother of their Deliverer, the Source of their salvation and their happiness, the Repairer of their falls, and the door through which they had entered into the kingdom of heaven: what was also said to her by the Seraphim, seeing her so penetrated by the flames of divine love; the Cherubim, perceiving in her a light infinitely higher and more penetrating than their own; the Thrones recognizing her as the living Ark where the most holy Trinity rested in a much more august and excellent manner than in themselves: what more? all the rest of the heavenly spirits, knowing that she came to add a new splendor to Paradise, and that, through her, the breaches that the revolt of Lucifer had made in their ranks would be happily repaired. Without doubt, all these blessed ones prostrated themselves before her, recognized her as their Queen and their Sovereign, offered her their persons and their services, and devoted themselves entirely to her to sing her praises eternally and to obey all her wishes.

LIVES OF THE SAINTS. — VOLUME IX.

This is how the holy Fathers whom we have already cited speak of it, in their sermons on the mystery of the Assumption: "The glorious Virgin," says Saint Bernard, "in ascending today into heaven, has given a marvelous increase to the joy with which the Blessed were already filled; for if the soul of the little Saint John, still enclosed in his mother's womb, was as if melted with gladness by a single word of Mary, what must have been the joy and the leaping of all these blessed spirits, when they had the hap piness, not o saint Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux and spiritual master of Raoul. nly to hear her voice, but also to contemplate her face and to enjoy her lovable presence? But who could think with how much glory this Queen of the world rose into the seat of her empire; with what tenderness of devotion the whole multitude of the blessed legions came to meet her to receive her, and with what canticle of honor they conducted her to the throne that the justice of God had prepared for her." He then describes, which is the principal thing in this feast, in what manner she was received by Him who was the object of her desires and whose possession was to make all her happiness: "Who will say again," he adds, "with what serenity of face, with what sweetness, what love, what looks, what embraces, she was received by her Son and carried above all creatures? It was without doubt with all the honor of which a Mother of such great merit was worthy, and with all the glory that was suitable to the magnificence and the piety of such a Son. Happy indeed the kisses that this divine Mother gave him when he hung at her breasts, and when she caressed him on her virginal bosom; but shall we not esteem happier the kisses that she received from his mouth at the right hand of the eternal Father, in the moment of her blessed exaltation, when, ascending to the throne of glory where she was to sit, she sang this sacred epithalamium: *Osculetur me osculo oris sui*: 'Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth'? Who will ever be able to declare the wonders of the generation of Jesus Christ and of the Assumption of Mary? for as much as she received of graces on earth above all the world, so much she received in heaven of singular glory which raises her above all that is created."

It would be necessary to describe here the welcome that was made to her by each of the divine persons, and by the whole most holy Trinity: by the Father, who looked upon her as the most perfect of all daughters, and as the one who had been on earth, with regard to his only Son, the vicar of his love and of his adorable fatherhood; by the Son, who looked upon her as his mother and as the one who had given him a second nature and a second birth by making him the Son of Man; by the Holy Spirit, who looked upon her as the most faithful of his spouses, and as the one who had rendered him divinely fruitful outside the bosom of the Divinity. But these great mysteries demand our adorations and our respects rather than our expressions, which can only be very imperfect. The books of meditation speak of them at greater length, and what we have said suffices to make one conceive how the triumph of the Assumption was brilliant and magnificent. One can only ask in what place the holy Virgin was placed. Saint Bernard answers: "As there was no place on earth more worthy than the virginal bosom where Mary had received and lodged the Son of God, so there is no place in the heavens more worthy than the royal throne where the Son of God has raised and placed his most holy Mother." Other holy doctors, explaining these words of Psalm XLIV: "The queen is placed at your right hand," and these others from the third book of *Kings*: "Solomon sat on his seat, and his mother sat at his right hand," say that Our Lord, in his Ascension, ascended to the right hand of his Father; and that Mary, in her Assumption, ascended to the right hand of Jesus Christ. But there is this difference that Our Lord ascended to the right hand of the Father, as being equal to him and having the same power and the same domain as he, while Mary ascended to the right hand of Jesus Christ with subordination to his divine authority; which makes Cardinal Bellarmine say, in his *Commentary on the Psalm* that we have just cited, that she was placed *in loco summi honoris infra regalem Tronum*: "in the first place of honor below the royal Throne of the divinity." The Abbot Guerric, spiritualizing this matter more, says: "She has become, herself, the Throne of God, following these words which the Church uses in its office: *Veni, electa mea, et ponam in te Tronum meum*: Come, my elect one, I will make you my Throne. She had been, on earth, his pavilion to fight, and his chair to teach; but she has become in heaven his house to rest in, and his throne to judge." He means that as the throne is the place where the prince appears with more splendor and majesty, so Mary is the person where the Son of God has displayed with more magnificence all the treasures of his power and all the riches of his glory. Finally, we have already remarked that, according to the sentiment of several holy doctors, she makes a particular Order between God and all the other blessed ones; which the learned chancellor of Paris declares excellently by these words taken from his *Commentary on the Magnificat*: "The Virgin composes by herself the second hierarchy below God, who is the first and sovereign Hierarch: for, for the humanity of Our Lord, being united hypostatically to the divinity, it belongs to this first hierarchy." The apostle Saint Paul seems to have wanted to express this mystery, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chap. XV, when he says: *Alia claritas solis, alia claritas lunæ et alia claritas stellarum*: Other is the brightness of the sun, that is to say of Jesus Christ; other the brightness of the moon, that is to say of the Virgin; and other the brightness of the stars, that is to say of the Angels and the Saints.

But, let us speak now of the mystery of her coronation, which is the sixth point that we proposed from the beginning of this discourse.

The Bridegroom, in the Song of Songs, and after having declared to his beloved that she is all beautiful and that no stain is found in her, says to her: "Come from Lebanon, my spouse, come; you shall be crowned from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards." He invites her three times to her coronation, whether because of the divine Persons who placed the diadem on her head; or to mark her three vocations: the first, to the essential beatitude which was conferred upon her at the moment of the separation of her soul from her body; the second, to her resurrection by the reunion of these two excellent parts; the third, to the consummated beatitude into which she entered by this resurrection and by her Assumption in body and soul into heaven: or finally to signify the three titles that made her worthy to be crowned, and the three crowns that were due to her, of which we will speak in a moment. One can also add that he repeats three times: *Come*, to represent his eagerness to glorify this Spouse, and to fill her with the greatest honor of which a pure creature is capable. He says to her twice: *Come from Lebanon*, which signifies whiteness, because her mortal life, which is the term from which he calls her, had been sovereignly pure and immaculate, as much according to the spirit as according to the flesh, and that no stain, neither bodily nor spiritual, had been found in her. He assures her that she will be crowned from the top of Amana and from the top of Senir and Hermon, three mountains that represent the three heavenly hierarchies and the three Orders of Saints among men, that is to say, the Virgins, the Married, and the Continent, because she was to be crowned as containing in herself the perfections of all the Saints. He declares to her finally that she will also be crowned from the dens of the lions and the mountains of the leopards, whether because of the victories she has won over the demons and the impious figured by these animals, or because of the great sinners she has conquered for God, and whose conversion she has merited.

Saint John, in his Apocalypse, chap. XII, describes this coronation to us thus: "A great sign," he says, "was shown to me in heaven: it was a woman clothed with the sun, who had the moon under her feet, and wore on her head a crown of twelve stars." This woman, without doubt, is Mary, as Saint Bernard and the other Fathers and Doctors of the Church explain. She is clothed with the sun, because having clothed with her own flesh the sun of justice, which is the eternal wisdom of God, this sun, in reward, has clothed her with his spirit and his glory; or rather he has made himself her glory, following what is written: "That a son commendable for his wisdom is the glory of his parents." She has the moon, that is to say inconstancy, under her feet, because she is in the state of a blessed immutability, having, from now on, all the fullness of honor that is due to her, and expecting nothing more for her consummation and her entire perfection. She wears on her head a crown of twelve stars, because having possessed on earth all the virtues in the most heroic degree, she now has the reward for them, and she is adorned with all the dowries with which a blessed one can be adorned, which are signified by this number of twelve which is a number of perfection.

One cannot therefore doubt the coronation of our Queen at the moment of her exaltation in heaven. But, to better understand it, it must be known that the crown is an ornament of round shape that one places on the head of a person to mark their excellence and their merits. Its form and the place where one puts it contribute to this end, because the circle and the round make the most accomplished of all figures, and that the head or the forehead is the true seat of greatness and majesty. Now, there are mainly three kinds of persons to whom one gives crowns: 1st, one gives them to sovereigns and great lords, to mark the fullness of their authority and their power; thus, there are imperial crowns, royal crowns, and crowns of duke, of marquis, and of count; 2nd, one gives them to the victorious, to mark the excellence of their talent, of their work; thus the Greeks crowned the poets and the orators who had carried the day in some combat of spirit; and, among the Romans, there were six kinds of crowns for the victors: one called *triumphalis*, for the generals of the army who had won a great battle; another called *ovalis*, for those who had won a lesser victory, and others for those who had been the first to either force the camp of the enemies, or jump into their ships, or climb to the breach, or else who had made the siege of a city be lifted; 3rd, finally, one gives crowns to spouses on the day of their wedding, to mark the perfection of their joy and the fulfillment of their desires; thus, Saint Agnes said that "Jesus Christ had adorned her with a crown, because she had the honor of being his spouse." Mary, our august Princess, has merited by her three titles to be crowned, and as sovereign, because she is the Queen and the Empress of the world: *Imperatrix angelorum et hominum universalis*, says Geoffrey of Vendôme, and that this quality belongs to her: 1st because she is the Daughter by excellence and the first heiress of the Most High; 2nd because she is the Mother of the Word who has associated her with all his greatness; 3rd because she is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, and even, according to the manner of speaking of Saint Epiphanius, the Spouse of the most holy Trinity: *Sponsa Trinitatis*. She was crowned as victorious, because she is, by herself, an army all entire set in battle array, and that she has won victories without number over the demon and over the world: which makes her be called by Saint Lawrence Justinian: *Terror diaboli*: "The terror of the demon"; by Sophronius or the author of the sermon of the Assumption: *Interemptrix universa hæreticæ pravitatis*: "The one who has exterminated all the malice of the heretics"; and by Saint Andrew of Crete: *Propugnaculum fidei Christianorum*: "The Rampart of the faith of the Christians." Finally, she was crowned as Spouse, because the day of the Assumption was properly the day of her wedding. She already had the quality of Spouse of the Holy Spirit, as we have just said, and it is by the Holy Spirit that she had conceived the incarnate Word, and that she had become mother of an infinity of adopted children; but the solemnity of her nuptials had not yet been made, it was necessary that it be done in heaven, so that all the Blessed would have part in such a great feast, and, consequently, it was necessary that beforehand she had been received there in triumph. It was therefore after this reception that the eternal Father made nuptials for his Daughter: *Fecit nuptias Filiæ suæ*, and it was then that she was crowned in the quality of Spouse. Thus, if you ask us what are the three crowns of Mary, we will tell you that these three crowns are the Imperial, the Triumphal, and the Nuptial: the Imperial, to honor her power and her universal sovereignty; the Triumphal, to recognize her victories and the conquests that she has made over sin and over the demon; the Nuptial, to solemnize her nuptials and the eternal union that she has with all the most holy Trinity.

The Reverend Father Poiré, in his learned book of the Triple crown of the Mother of God, explains these three crowns otherwise, but in a manner, nevertheless, that returns to what we have just said: "The first is a crown of excellence, which includes twelve perfections with which this adorable Virgin was endowed; the second, a crown of power which contains twelve prerogatives of the great power that was given to her; the third, a crown of goodness which contains twelve ways in which she assists her own, and in which she procures their salvation and their eternal happiness: so that she is three times crowned with twelve stars. She is so, firstly, for her sovereign dignity and for an infinity of gifts, of graces, and of virtues that accompany her. She is so, secondly, for her absolute and universal power, and for a great number of rights and privileges that are born from this power. She is so, thirdly, for her incomparable goodness, and for the traits and the loving operations of this goodness." Others still, by these three crowns to which her Bridegroom invites her, in the Song of Songs, understand the three aureoles: of Martyrdom, of Doctorate, and of Virginity. Indeed, one cannot doubt that she received them all in a very eminent manner: that of Martyrdom, since she suffered more at the foot of the Cross than all the other Martyrs; that of the Doctorate, since she is legitimately called, by the Abbot Rupert, the Mistress of masters, and by Saint Augustine, the Mistress of all nations: that of Virginity, since the whole Church recognizes her for the Virgin of virgins, who has never had and will never have a like.

One can ask of what nature these crowns are. We answer, in a word, that they are both bodily and spiritual: they are bodily, because one cannot doubt that the venerable forehead of the Virgin was surrounded by rays of an inestimable splendor, and which give, themselves alone, more brilliance to heaven than all the bodies of the other Saints give together after the resurrection; which makes Saint Anselm say that the day of the Assumption filled heaven and all that is in heaven, with a new and ineffable glory: *Nova et ineffabilis gloria decoravit*. They are also spiritual, because God gave to the soul of this most pure Virgin, besides the essential glory of which we have spoken, a fullness of accidental glory, that is to say of light, of joy, and of delights, which pass all conceptions, and which we can justly call crowns. He made her recognized at the same time by all that there was of angels and blessed men, for their Lady and their Sovereign after him, for the Governess of the world, for the Treasurer and the Dispenser of his graces, for the great Instrument of his wonders, and even, according to the manner of speaking of Saint Ephrem, for their own crown.

It is easy to conclude from all that has been said how much power the Blessed Virgin has to assist us, and how much we depend on her assistance and protection to overcome the difficulties of our pilgrimage, and to arrive safely at the port of salvation to which we aspire. The holy Fathers tell us wonders on this subject: besides the beautiful epithets included in the Litanies, Saint Epiphanius calls her the confidence of Christians; Saint Bernard, the whole subject of our hope; Richard of Saint-Laurent, the neck of the Church through which all the favors of Jesus Christ must pass to flow into its members; the Hymn of the Greeks, our wall, our support, and our invincible defense; Saint Germanus of Constantinople, the torch that lights our darkness, the dew that extinguishes our lusts, the counsel that dissipates our doubts, the medicine that heals our wounds, the lenitive that soothes our pains, the consolation that dries our tears, and the treasure that effectively remedies our poverty; finally, Saint Peter Damian and other Fathers, the celestial ladder by which God descended from heaven, and Saint Ephrem, the sure port for those who were in danger of shipwreck. It is in this same sentiment that the same Saint Bernard addresses to us these words full of piety and unction: "If the winds of temptations arise against you, if you find yourself in the midst of the reefs and rocks of tribulations, look to this Star, implore the help of Mary. If you are agitated by the waves of pride, ambition, envy, and detraction, turn to this Star, invoke the name of Mary. If anger, avarice, and incontinence shake the vessel of your soul, cast your eyes on this Star and cry: Mary! If, being troubled by the magnitude of your crimes, astonished by the miserable state of your conscience, frightened by the severity of the judgments of God, you begin to enter into a black melancholy and into the abyss of despair, think as soon as possible of Mary. In dangers, in troubles, in distresses, in the greatest extremities, remember Mary, ask for the protection of Mary. Let her name not depart from your mouth, let her memory not depart from your heart; and, to obtain the suffrage of her prayers, never cease also to imitate her examples. By following her, you will not go astray; by praying to her, you will be out of danger of despair; by thinking of her, you will not fall into error; if she has the kindness to support you, you will not make any misstep; if she honors you with her protection, you will have no cause for fear; if she takes the trouble to lead you, you will walk without solicitude; and, if she is willing to be propitious to you, you will arrive happily at the term of salvation and you will experience with how much reason one has given her the name of Mary." It is by virtue of this prerogative that Saint Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, whom we have just cited, speaks to her in this way: "No one is saved but through you, O most holy Virgin; no one is exempt from evil but through you, O most pure Virgin; no one receives celestial gifts but from your hands, O most chaste Virgin; God shows mercy to no one but through your means, O Virgin! Mother of eternal blessing!"

It is therefore Mary who is our Advocate and our Mediatrix with her Son; but an advocate who has all the qualities that one could wish for to properly discharge this function, we mean Credit, Industry, and Goodness; credit, since she is the Mother of our Judge, and that, to sway him, she can represent to him the bowels that carried him, the breasts that nursed him, the arms and hands that supported him, and above all the heart that has always loved him with infinite tenderness; industry, since Scripture, according to the application of the Church, gives her the name of Wisdom, and assures us that counsel and prudence are always with her; goodness, since she is also our Mother and has for us bowels of mercy whose sweetness cannot be understood: "You have," Saint Bernard tells us again, "a great advocate with the eternal Father, who is Jesus Christ, his only Son; he will certainly listen to you, and he will be listened to; but if the brilliance of his divine majesty dazzles you and prevents you from throwing yourself at his feet, you also have a powerful Advocate with him, who is Mary: address yourself to her, she will hear you and she will undoubtedly be heard. That is," he adds, "the ladder of sinners, it is the whole foundation of our hope. Jesus with his Father, Mary with Jesus; for, Jesus cannot be rejected by his Father, and Mary cannot be rejected by Jesus." But if Mary is such a good and powerful Advocate of the faithful, it is particularly at the moment of their death that she makes her mercy and assistance appear to them: and, in fact, Our Lord, in reward for the acceptance she made of death, which she had in no way deserved, gave her a singular power to assist Christians at this last hour. This is why the Church, at the end of the Angelic Salutation, says to her these words: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our death." And in the hymn *Memento*: "Mary, full of grace, Mother of mercy, defend us from the enemy and receive us at the hour of death."

It is now necessary to mark how we must honor her merits and her incomparable excellence, and recognize the inestimable favors that we have received and that we receive every day through her means. The Reverend Father Poiré, in the fourth treatise of his Triple Crown, reports twelve different ways of testifying our gratitude: the first is to have a high esteem for this divine Mother, to regard her as the first of all creatures and as the great masterpiece of the hands of the Almighty, and to always maintain a profound respect for her gifts, her prerogatives, and her virtues; the second, to have a firm confidence in her help, to have recourse to her in all sorts of difficulties, to rest on her protection without worry in the most thorny affairs, and to undertake nothing except under her guidance and in the hope of her protection; the third, to love her with a cordial and constant love, to take pleasure in conversing and dealing with her, to rejoice in her perfections and her happiness, and to extend this love to everything that belongs to her; the fourth, to practice the actions that one believes to be most pleasing to her, with the view of pleasing her: such as assisting the poor, visiting the sick, consoling the afflicted, correcting sinners, and working for the conquest of souls; the fifth, to thank her for her benefits and to invite others to thank her for them, to attribute to her the good successes one has had in one's affairs, and to make others attribute them to her; the sixth, to publish her merits and praises everywhere, to make them known to the poor and the ignorant, to engage as many people as one can in her service, and to divert with all one's strength everything that may be contrary to her glory; the seventh, to honor her internally and externally, to render to her the worship that we call hyperdulia; to venerate her relics and her images, to celebrate her feasts devoutly, to build churches and oratories for her, or to contribute to their ornamentation, and to visit the places that are particularly dedicated to her; the eighth, to be singularly devout to her, either by communicating often, to thank God for the graces he has granted her, or by assiduously reciting the Angelic Salutation, or the Little Office, the Rosary, the Crown, and other prayers composed in her honor; the ninth, to perform various mortifications on the days that the Church has particularly designated to solemnize her memory, such as fasting, wearing the hairshirt, sleeping on the hard ground, abstaining from games and walks, and living in greater retreat; the tenth, to imitate her admirable virtues, especially her faith, her confidence in God, her humility, her patience, her gentleness, her angelic purity, and her all-divine charity; the eleventh, to enter into the associations and confraternities established under her name, such as those of the Rosary, the Scapular, and Purity; the twelfth, to work continuously to amplify her cult and to extend the respects and adorations that are rendered to her. A new discourse would still be needed to report the graces that have been obtained through these practices, and the miracles that the glorious Virgin has performed on all sides in favor of those who have been faithful to them. One will be able to see them in the books that have treated this matter expressly, besides the fact that one will find a large part of them in the Lives of the Saints that we provide in this work. Thus, after having satisfied the eight points that we had proposed to ourselves at the beginning of this discourse, it remains for us to say two words about the institution of today's feast, which is the most solemn of all the feasts of Our Lady.

There is much appearance that it was not yet instituted in the time of the Emperor Marcian and the Empress Pulcheria, since, having erected a temple in Constantinople in honor of Our Lady, they prayed to the Patriarch of Jerusalem to have her body to enrich and ennoble this basilica. But, since that time, it began to be established and to extend in various places, both in the Latin Church and in the Greek Church. We have already remarked that mention is made of it in the Roman Ordo, which some authors make older than the second race of our kings, as well as in the Benedictional and the Sacramentary of Saint Gregory, who lived at the end of the 6th century. It is believed, it is true, that in the latter, the office of the Assumption was added; but it is certain that this addition is older than Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, since Abbot Grimold, who lived at that time, was the first to make this remark. We also find this feast in the Rules of Saint Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, under Pepin the Short, in the Capitularies of the King and Emperor Charlemagne, and in the ordinances of the Council of Mainz, celebrated in 813. It was a vigil and octave from the time of Pope Nicholas I, in 858, and Sigebert, in his Chronicle, remarks that this octave had been ordered in Rome by Pope Leo IV, although perhaps before that time it was already celebrated in other places. Saint Bernard, in his Epistle CXXIV to the canons of Lyon, says that he had received this solemnity from the ancient institution of the Church: and Saint Peter of Cluny, his contemporary, reports that the candles that the Romans offered on the eve of this day, although they burned all night and until the solemn mass of the next day, did not diminish at all and lost nothing of their weight.

It appears, from what we have just said, that the feast of the Assumption has been, for a long time, very famous throughout France; but King Louis XIII made it even more famous, in 1638, by the solemn offering he made of his person and his kingdom to the glorious Virgin, Mother of God, to thank her for all the favors he had received from her goodness, and to obtain, through her intercession, a dauphin for France, who was his son Louis XIV. For this, very august processions were held in all the churches of the kingdom; and, because H is Majesty Louis XIII King of France who ordered the construction of the church. was at that time in Abbeville, he made his communion and attended the procession, Vespers, and the sermon, in the church of the Minims of that city. These processions are still continued every year in many places, as from all antiquity; according to the remark of the Roman Ordo, one was held in Rome that stopped at Saint-Adrien, and then went to Saint Mary Major.

The sepulcher of the Virgin was in the village of Gethsemane, in the valley of Jehoshaphat. But, under the emperors Vespasian and Titus, this place was so devastated by the armies of these princes, who took Jerusalem, that the faithful could no longer recognize where it was. This is why Saint Jerome, who makes mention of the tombs of the patriarchs and prophets that were visited by Saint Paula and Saint Eustochium, does not speak at all of that of the Virgin. Since then, nevertheless, it has been discovered by divine permission. Burchard assures that he had seen it, but so burdened with the ruins of other buildings that one had to descend into it by sixty steps. Bede writes that it was shown empty in his time. Now it is shown to the pilgrims of the Holy Land, carved into a rock.

There were printed in Paris, in 1670, two excellent apologies in favor of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in body and soul into heaven; one, by Lavoce, Doctor of the Sorbonne, then canon of the cathedral church of this city, and later Bishop of Boulogne-sur-Mer; and the other, by Gaudin, also a Doctor of the Sorbonne, canon and official of the same church. One finds there all the proofs of this truth, which is above all supported by the common agreement of the Church and the faithful.