We should not be ourselves scandalised because the announcement of the definition of Mary's Assumption has scandalised many earnest and honest minds. Bather may we ask whether we have fully appreciated its significance if we ourselves are not in some measure shocked and disturbed. True, the Pope will tell us nothing that we have not always taken for granted as part and parcel of the Catholic faith; we have meditated upon it in the last two decades of the Rosary, we have celebrated unquestioningly every August 15th. Yet it is no obvious, easily credible commonplace which is to he formally proclaimed to be an article of our faith; rather does it tax and test our faith to the utmost, and present a crucial challenge to our profession of acceptance of the central Christian mystery.

Some have maintained that it was the apocryphal storips current towards the middle and end of the fourth century which created the idea that our Lady went up to heaven body and soul after death. This was the not the order in the case of the Gospels and the apocryphal gospels; the ‘former came first and then they were embroidered. So it would have been with the De Dormitione Beatae Mariae. It would have rested upon some foundation in the now forgotten tradition of the earliest times about the dormitiou of Mary. But it is not on these stories that the belief in the Assumption of Mary is grounded. Indeed, Pope Gelasius, while having a feast in his sacramentary for the Assumption, went out of his way to condemn those apocrypha as not being part of the canon of Scripture. It is an interesting point to note that, while denying their authenticity, he does not condemn the underlying truth.

The Gospel appointed to be read on the feast of the Assumption is the account of the two sisters, Martha and Mary, and the way they entertained Christ in their home. This may seem a strange choice for this feast. Our Lady is not referred to in the narrative; while the one who bears the same name is the great sinner converted into the great lover, St Mary Magdalen a very different person from the immaculate Virgin whose very perfection of purity seems to demand freedom from corruption. Some will conclude that it is the parallel between the contemplative resting at our Lord's feet and the glorious rest of the Assumption that the Church is anxious to emphasise here. Indeed the glorification of Mary's body reunited to her soul does represent the complete and perfect contemplative state, for our Lady has reached the Vision in which her whole being shares; and that was the heart's desire of the Magdalen.

Mary, chosen to be the Mother of God; Mary, chosen and therefore fitted by God to be his Mother; Mary, treated ever afterwards by God in accordance with her sanctity, both personal and official; these are the connecting links in the chain of our knowledge of Mary. Just now our attention is directed to the third and final of these links—the definition of her Assumption into heaven. Here, to vary the metaphor, we have not merely a passion for tying up the loose ends of doctrine; what we see is rather the providential climax of a centuries-old process-the vindication of our Lady's place in Christian tradition.

Happily, just as we fix our minds on what may be called her external glories, there is a growing interest in her inner life, namely the devotion to her Immaculate Heart. This is an effort to seek for her personal worth. Here we are in fact studying the choicest fruit of the Redemption, by which and we are saved. One-sided stress ou, e.g., the Assumption, might lead to a dehuroanisation of Mary, just as in earlier days one-sided stress on the divinity of her Son led men to forget and even deny his humanity.

In the liturgical tradition of the Eastern Church the idea of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin includes the following incidents: the death of the Virgin, her burial. her rising again, her assumption, and finally her enthrone- ment in heaven as Queen of all being. According to the eastern manner of thinking it is the first event, that is to say the death of the Blessed Virgin, which occupies the central position in liturgical prayer and meditation. This death is called the falling asleep’ or ‘dormition', whence comes the name of the feast of 15th August, ‘The Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary'.

In preparation for this feast there is a period of fasting called the Lent of the Dormition which begins on 1st August. The 14th is the Vigil and the whole festival ends on the 23rd.

ON the 15th August the Church learnt of the Holy Father's decision to define Mary's Assumption as an article of faith on the 1st November. The previous day the S.P.C.K. brought out a small book 'entitled The Assumption of Our Lady and Catholic Theology. The blurb informs us that 'It is an important characteristic of this book that it is written from a Roman Catholic point of view'. That before the dope's decision was known Catholics should speak against the opportuneness of the definition is in no way extraordinary. Learned theologians have expressed such an opinion. But we are at a loss to understand how Messrs Bennett and Wynch, if they are Catholics, consider themselves authorised to publish a book on such a serious subject without the imprimatur and from a publishing house which is ex professo non-Catholic.

There are two Feasts which, maybe, can be celebrated with special unselfishness—that of the Immaculate Conception, and that of the Assumption. We must not feel it wrong if we keep the great feasts of our Lord with a certain consciousness of ourself, for after all, the Incarnation and all that it made possible—the Passion and the Resurrection itself—were ordained propter nos homines; for the sake of us men and our salvation. Even the Ascension, which can indeed be celebrated most unselfishly’ as the feast of our Lord's glorification, yet reminds us that as we are co-risen, so we are to be co-glorified.

Of course, since all the perfections of our Lady were granted to her in view of her Son—Christus cogitabatur—she too can be thought °f as existing ultimately for our sake. But I should find it difficult to see how the Assumption can be regarded otherwise than as something for our Lady's own sake, and for the glory of God.

Recently I came across an attractive little booklet entitled, How to say the Rosary, written by an Anglican. It was well printed and everything about it was in the best possible taste. There were artistic prints, the letterpress at first sight seemed very good, and the instructions admirable: it was almost too good to be true. I turned over the pages and read on to what actually turned out to be the bitter end, for I was told after the third Glorious Mystery, that the last two. the Assumption and coronation of Our Lady, were to be omitted because there was no justification for them in Holy Scripture. That meant presumably that they were nowhere explicitly mentioned in the Bible. Well! I had already been told to say the Hail Mary, including the second part in which our Lady is invoked as Holy Mary, Mother of God— a title not to be found in Scripture and (like the Glory be to the Father) only explicitly formulated as Catholic doctrine in the fourth century. Then too the Salve Regina is not to be discovered in so toany words in Scripture, and I could not help thinking that my would-be instructor in how to say the Rosary was being a hit inconsistent.

We may contemplate in this Mystery how our Lady was carried up body and soul into heaven, to the great joy of the heavenly court. And as we contemplate the mystery we may allow the phrases of our Lady's own song, the Magnificat, to pass through our minds.

My soul doth magnify the Lord—soon after the death of God's Mother that soul of hers which had ever magnified him was re-united to the body which had given a body to him through whom ‘all honour and glory’ is given to the Father.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour—Mary was preredeemed by Jesus. From this fact we understand her Immaculate Conception, her sinless life and her Assumption into glory where her rejoicing is fulfilled.

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid—it is the humble of heart whom God raises on high—he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

If thou wilt devoutly hail this glorious virgin, first consider her worthy muchness: what she is; she is God's Mother, worthier might she not be, and therefore with mirth and with wondering raise up worthyness to God's Mother and say to her here with reverence thus: Salve— Hail; and with that word stint into beholding and say: Lady! though I vilest and unworthiest of all creatures presume for to come to thy presence and to greet thee, thou art queen of heaven, lady of angels, mother of God, nevertheless I trust on thine unmeasurable meekness that thou wilt suffer me. And therefore thou, thou that be God's ark, without comparison worthier and holier than the ark of the Old Testament that Moses made, and I arm much worse and uncleaner than Oza was, nevertheless Lady I trow that if I touch thee with devotion of heart, and greet thee with my mouth, I shall not be smitten to death ns Oza was, that touched Moses's ark, hut I hope to he quickened and more inflamed with thy love, for to say to thee heartily oft, salve Regina—Hail Queen! Well is me that I have such a queen, and such a lady, under whose rule and ladyship I may lead my life.

For our discursive minds things in themselves one and undivided have to be separated, sub-divided, analysed, taken apart in a way which is sufficiently real in the case of a complicated piece of machinery or even with the human body, but which when applied to things that are not material—like the human mind—becomes most unreal and unnatural. In the case of spiritual entities just because they are so one and indivisible we endeavour all the more to divide them in a feeble effort to get some understanding of what must ultimately remain mysterious. So we find that there are as many divisions and sub-divisions in theology as there are in zoology or biology.

But there is nothing reprehensible in this. It is the legitimate attempt of the human mind to exercise its proper function in acquiring knowledge. The things of God lie beyond anything but a scrappy and imperfect knowledge, but the mind must try to pierce the veils—provided that it fully recognises its limitations.