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Announce the assigned mystery:
>> THE
ASSUMPTION
Mary was assumed into Heaven, body and soul. "Assumption" means
here "to be taken up" body and soul to Heaven. It is not
Ascension, like Jesus, done by His own power, but Assumption done by the
power of God. It is something God did for her, not something she did
herself. It is a gift of God as a result of Christ's redemptive power
applied to Virgin Mary.
Fruit of the Mystery:
Grace of a Happy Death
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Scripture Reading:
You are the glory of
Jerusalem...you are the splendid boast of our people...God is
pleased with what you have wrought. May you be blessed by the Lord
Almighty forever and ever. ~Judith 15:9-10
The belief
in the corporeal assumption of Mary is founded on the apocryphal
treatise De Obitu S. Dominae, bearing the name of St. John, which
belongs, however, to the fourth or fifth century. St. Juvenal,
Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known
to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the
body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all
the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of
St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that
the body was taken up to heaven. Today, the belief in the
corporeal assumption of Mary is universal in the East and in the
West. >> More
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