The Blessed Virgin enters the heavenly temple, Mary: Day 283

The Blessed Virgin enters the heavenly temple, Mary: Day 283 April 29, 2016

year_with_mary_john_of_damascus_1The Blessed Virgin enters the heavenly temple

St. John of Damascus celebrates Mary’s new and fitting home in heaven.

Today the holy Virgin of Virgins is presented in the heavenly temple. Today the sacred and living Ark of the living God, who conceived her Creator himself, takes up her abode in the temple of God not made by hands.

David, her forefather, rejoices. Angels and archangels are in jubilation, angelic powers exult, the angelic choirs of principalities and dominations, virtues and thrones, are in gladness. Cherubim and seraphim magnify God. Nor is it the least of their praise to acclaim the mother of glory.

Today, like Noah’s dove, this holy dove—the pure and guileless soul, sancti- fied by the Holy Spirit—put off the life-giving Ark of her body, which had car- ried our Lord. She found rest for the soles of her feet, taking her flight to the spiritual world and dwelling securely in the sinless country above.

Today the Eden of the new Adam receives the true paradise, in which sin is forgiven, the tree of life is grown, and our nakedness is covered. For we are no longer naked and uncovered as our first parents were, unable to bear the splen- dor of bearing the image of God. The serpent, by whose deceitful promise we were made like brute beasts, did not enter into this paradise.

Today the spotless Virgin, untouched by earthly affections, and all heavenly in her thoughts, was not dissolved in earth. Truly entering heaven, she dwells instead in the heavenly dwellings.

—St. John of Damascus, Second Homily on the Dormition

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

Who is “the new Adam,” and what is his “Eden”? Who is the “true paradise”?

What does it mean to say that we are “no longer naked and uncovered”?

CLOSING PRAYER

From a prayer of Venerable Pope Pius XII: Mary, your eyes, which wept over the earth crimsoned by the blood of Jesus, are yet turned toward this world racked by wars and persecutions, the oppression of the just and the weak. From the shadows of this vale of tears, we seek your assistance from heaven.

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