The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-08-18

DE NEE CONSIDERED - THE
CATHOLIC POSITION CLEARLY
T STATED.
If according to Jewish custom Our
Blessed Lady was maiden of some
fifteen years of age when she was es-
poused to ST. Joseph, says the Bombay
Examiner we need only add to this
the figure thirty-three years of Our
Lords life on earth to ascertain that
| at the time of His ascension the
| Blessed Virgin was approaching her
| 10th year of life. After the solemn
| bequest made by Jesus on the cross,
st. John became her special compan-
ion and protector. The glorious
Mother of God lived in common with
| the apostolic college and the first:
community of Christians at Jerusalem.
She was present in the upper cham
Der when the twelve received the
lgift of the Holy Ghost, and she wit
messed in the fruits of st. Peters SER
mon the first increase in the company
| of the faithful. How long she remain
| ed at Jerusalem, or whether in fact
she ever left the Holy City is a mat
| ter of some uncertainty. Neverthe-
less an ancient tradition affirms that
she at least visited Ephesus in COM
pany with st. John, and there won to
| herself that love and devotion which
| three centuries later gave rise to that
cry "Theotokos'' which defeated en-
tirely the efforts of Nestorius against
the privilege of her divine maternity.
| The Ephesians even make claim to
her having died in their city; but be-
yond an ambiguous and mutilated
passage in an ancient MSS they can
produce no conclusive argument in ia
vor of this supposition.
! If local tradition be our guide, we
must believe that Our Lady, after her
travels with the evangelist, returned
to Jerusalem; and there, abiding in a
house few yards west of the Coena
culum (for this latter building had by
this time been converted into a
church) died at length most blessed
death at date, if we accept the COM
mon opinion, fifteen years after the
ascension and in the Gath year of her
age.
What the Assumption Means.
BY the Assumption of Our Lady we
mean that Mary after her death was
raised up again by the power of God,
and taken body and soul into heaven.
There is one father in the fourth cen
fury (Epiphanius) who even went so
far as to doubt whether Our Lady had
ever died-an opinion containing the
idea of assumption and something
more. In the 18th century few
| theological writer's followed Epiphan-
ius in this extreme view. They rested
their contention on the theory that
since Mary had been free from the
stain of original sin, she must have
also been free from its consequences,
and therefore from the penalty of
death; together with other argu.
ments of "congruity" or fitness
which, though sometimes sound, are
/ also sometimes unsound, and often
precarious when it is a question OF
settling a point of fact. The same idea
was once more revived by one Armada
in the 10Th century; but as Bellamy
dict Theol. sub. tit. Assumption) OBJ
serves: Such a view is manifestly
contrary to patristic tradition, litur
gy, and the common teaching of thee
1 fa1y
up by other Catholic thinkers. The
i Catholic belief, which is SO strong in
maintaining the bodily assumption OF
the Blessed Virgin, is equally strong
in maintaining that she also previous
4 ly died.
! Lesetre (Dictionnaire de la Bible
sub. tit. Marie) remarks that after
Pentecost the B. Virgin remained al
& Jerusalem under the care of st. John
l-who, however, travelled about from
time to time, but probably did not &C
to Ephesus till after the death oil
Mary. A thick veil Che observes
covers the life of Our Lady during
this period The absence of authentic
documents prevents us from saying
| whether she spent her last days in
Jerusalem or not. Those who suppose
that she went to Ephesus rely on al
obscure and incomplete passage in the
acts of the Council of Ephesus CA. D
43D. Tillemont, it is true, thought
that she died and was buried in Ephe
sus; but he did not rest his conten
ton on this precarious text It is pos
sible, but wanting in evidence, ant
the probabilities are against it. Or
the other hand, the view that she re
manned in Jerusalem and died there
although more generally held will
fair probability, is not without diff
culties of it's own Antiquity has. lef
us no information either as to the
time, place or age at. which Our Lady
l3died. t
Among outsiders the Catholic belief
in the Assumption is often discredite6
by the fact that it's earliest mention is
found, not in the authentic records oil
patristic tradition, but in the apocry
phal romances, mixed UP with Other
matter of manifestly extrayagan
and legendary kind. While admitting
Il the fact we rpn1v that o11r hoIinf rosts