From
the Book of Revelations (12:1-6):
1
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon
under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
2
She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.
3
Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven
heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems.
4
Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the
earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her
child when she gave birth.
5
She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an
iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne.
6
The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God,
that there she might be taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days.
This
is the day we celebrate the bodily assumption into heaven of our Blessed Mother. If you want to read a good piece on why the
day is so important, read here from the Catholic news site, aleteia.
The dignity of the
Immaculate Conception is uniquely Mary’s; but the dignity of living body and
soul with God, which the Assumption foreshadows, that can be ours. That is, in
fact, the great promise Christ offers us; and Mary shows the fulfillment of
this promise to us in her Assumption.
And
I was directed to this blog, The Jagged Word, of a group of Lutheran pastors,
where one of them, Graham Glover, wrote this post, “Protestantism’s Greatest Heresy – Ignoring the Blessed Mother.” Glover laments the diminution of the Blessed
Virgin in Protestant worship.
Rather, we lump her
together with the other saints of the New Testament. But the Blessed Mother is
nothing of the sort. She is no ordinary saint. She is the saint of saints. She
is the Theotokos – the Mother of God, a title given her at the Council of
Ephesus in 431 and echoed in the Lutheran Book of Concord. The Blessed Mother
is the example that all Christians should emulate. Her “Yes” to the angel
Gabriel is an act of faith that sets the standard for all of the Church to
follow.
And
he concludes with one of the best homage to our lady that I have come across:
To ignore the Blessed
Virgin Mary makes no sense. Without her our Christology is shot. Without her
our hermeneutics are insignificant. Without her our understanding of sin and
grace is incomplete. Without her we cannot call ourselves part of the Body of
Christ. This woman is our Mother, commended to the Church by our Lord Himself.
And to ignore her is something no Christian should ever do.
Ave Maria, gratia
plena, Dominus tecum!
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with
Thee;
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Jesus.
Great post Manny.
ReplyDeleteIn line with what I wrote on my Blog entitled "Infallible Pope?"
God bless.
Thanks. I haven't seen your blog yet. I'll go check it out and comment there.
DeleteHail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee;
ReplyDeleteBlessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Great Words that The Angel Gabriel was said to have pronounced to Our Blessed Heavenly Mother Mary while she was carrying our Lord and Savior "Jesus". Right Manny?
God Bless
No actually, the Angel only said the Hail Mary full of grace line. It was Elizabeth a little further down the chapter who said "Blessed art though among women and blessed is the fruit of they womb." Luke 1:42. Check it out. ;)
DeleteForgive me Manny! I kind of should have known that and trust me when I say that I was not checking you out...
ReplyDeleteTruth be known I was just a little too quick to comment as usual...lol
Thank you and God Bless
You're forgiven. ;)
Delete((( You're forgiven. ;) )))
ReplyDeleteManny! Ever since I made that mistake, I've been wondering why GOD (Good Old Dad) could let me make such a silly mistake cause before my chapel burnt down, I use to say countless Rosaries and long story short, although I said them in French, I still knew that The Joyous Mysteries told me that it was the second decade when Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was six month with child John The Baptist when she said to Mary, "Blessed art though among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." Longer story shorter, Manny you were kind not to correct me on my first mistake which was that Gabriel was not really just an Angel who appeared to Mary, this angel was really an Archangel and how dare "I" demon, "I" mean demote this heavenly guy...
Manny after all the miracles that GOD allowed me to take part in, how could He let me make these mistakes. For example one of our grand son who was having a little problem on the home front stayed with US (usual sinners) so that he could obtain his grade ten and eleven credits and let me go off on a tangent and say that he graduated with his grade twelve this year and his grandmother and I were invited and there was a little party after...
Anyway! No! NO! Don't think that Manny! "IT" is not your fault that you replied to my comment...
Ok I'll just tell YA about one true miracle and this grand child will not even argue about "IT". There's times while in my chapel and being eccentric, I would literally pray for hours on my knees. The spiritual games that I played with my grandson will either make him a lot stronger spiritually and/or ...never mine... "I" mean never mind. I'll go straight to the miracle where I would sometime walk to his bedroom with my rosary in my hand and after knocking on his door, I pretended that I was walking in my sleep cause it was late and he had school the next day. Let's just say that his so called alien angel species cells were not very happy with me. Long story short, when I opened my eyes, he literally started to grow in height and he had past me and all I could think of saying while this was happening was, "The higher they get, the harder they fall". Believe "IT" or not, he then literally started to lower his head and longer story shorter, this all took place in lest than a minute and when "IT" was all over, he was about six inches taller than I was and before that happened, I was a few inches taller than he was and that's the Truth and I'm sticking to "IT"...
I year YA Manny! What more do you want me to do Victor? After all, I did forgive you! LOL :)
God Bless you and your family Manny