18th August, Within the Octave of the Assumption

Within the Octave of the Assumption

"The immaculate body of Mary remained without corruption and was borne up to heaven, before the general resurrection." (Lesson at Matins).

The Council of the Vatican, which had to be adjourned in 1870, was not able to carry out the desire which had been expressed for the definition of this dogma. The task was completed by Pope Pius XII in 1950, in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus, in which he exercised the proper infallibility of the Roman Pontiff - "that they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles." (Vatican Council 1870)

Previously it was held as doctrinally certain. As the St Andrew Missal reported, "although not defined as a dogma of our faith, this truth is of those no one is permitted to doubt, as Benedict XIV declares."

In fact the  final triumph of the Assumption corresponds with this initial privilege of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. As the feast of the Conception of the Virgin affirmed in certain liturgies how appropriately God almighty had made Mary a creature apart from her very birth, so the feast of the Assumption each year proclaims the same appropriateness when she leaves this earth. The harmony which reigns in the works of God required an earlier resurrection of the Mother of God, who, holy among all and ever virgin, deserved on the part of her Son an adequate reward worthy of her position as Queen of heaven and mediatrix of all mankind.


O Jesu, vivens in Maria, veni et vive in famulis tuis, in Spiritu sanctitatis tuae, in plenitudine virtutis tuae, in veritate virtutum tuarum, in perfectione viarum tuarum, in communione mysteriorum tuorum, dominar omni adversae potestati in Spiritu tuo ad gloriam Patris. Amen.
O Jesus, who dost live in Mary, come and live in Thy servants, in the spirit of Thine own holiness, in the fullness of Thy power, in the reality of Thy virtues, in the perfection of Thy ways, in the communion of Thy mysteries, - have Thou dominion over every adverse power, in Thine own Spirit, to the glory of Thy Father. Amen.