VIEW THE MYSTERY

1. As the New Law of Grace continued to spread in Jerusalem so the number of the faithful increased and the New Evangelical Church was augmented day by day (Acts 5, 14). In like manner did the solicitude and attention of Its Great Queen and Teacher, Mary, expand toward the new children engendered by the Apostles through their preaching. As they were the foundation-stones of the Church, on which the security of that building was to depend, the Most Prudent Lady lavished especial care upon the Apostolic College. From the Acts we learn that Saint Peter went to Lydda and Jaffa, where he raised Tabitha from the dead and performed other miracles, returning again to Jerusalem. Saint Luke relates these excursions after speaking of the death of Saint Stephen.

2.  In all their difficulties and labors the Most Loving Mother thus assisted them, besides offering up for them Her continual prayers and thanksgiving. With all the other faithful She proportionately exhibited the same care; and although there were many converts in Jerusalem and in Palestine, She remembered them all in their necessities and tribulations. And She thought not only of the needs of their souls, but of those of the body, and many She cured of most grave sicknesses. Others, whom She knew were not to be cured miraculously, She visited and assisted in person. Of the poor She took a still greater care.

3. In an especial manner Her Maternal Kindness exhibited itself to those who were in the agony of death; for she attended many of the dying and would not leave them, until they had secured their eternal salvation. For those who went to Purgatory She offered up most fervent prayers and performed some works of penance, such as prostrations in the form of a cross, genuflections and other exercises, by which She satisfied for their faults. Then She sent one of Her Angels in order to draw them from Purgatory and present them to Her Son in Heaven as His own and as the fruits of His Blood and Redemption. This happiness the Queen of Heaven procured to many souls during Her stay upon earth. And, as far as was made known to me, this favor is not denied in our days to those, who during their earthly life dispose themselves properly for meriting her presence.

4. The Most Holy Mary had arrived at the age of sixty-seven years without having tarried in Her career, ceased in Her flight, mitigated the flame of Her Love, or lessened the increase of Her merits from the first instant of Her Conception. The overwhelming attraction of the Divinity to unite Itself with Her with Eternal and most close bonds, (according to our mode of speaking) had attained the summit of power in Her; and the earth itself, made unworthy by the sins of mortals to contain the Treasure of Heaven, could no longer bear the strain of withholding Her from Her True Lord. The eternal Father desired His Only and True Daughter; the Son His beloved and Most Loving Mother; and the Holy Ghost the embraces of His Most Beautiful Spouse. The Angels longed for Their Queen, the Saints for Their Great Lady; and all the heavens mutely awaited the presence of Their Empress Who should fill Them with glory, with Her beauty and delight. All that could be alleged in favor of Her still remaining in the world and in the Church, was the need of such a Mother and Mistress, and the love, which God Himself had for the miserable children of Adam.

5. But as some term and end was to be placed to the earthly career of our Queen, the Divine Consistory conferred upon the manner of glorifying the Most Blessed Mother and established the kind of loving reward due to Her for having so copiously fulfilled all the designs of the Divine Mercy among the children of Adam during the many years in which She had been the Foundress and Teacher of his Holy Church. The Almighty therefore resolved to delight and console Her by giving Her definite notice of the term still remaining of Her life and revealing to Her the day and hour of the longed for end of Her earthly banishment. For this purpose the Most Blessed Trinity dispatched the Archangel Gabriel with many others of the Celestial Heirarchies, who should announce to the Queen when and how Her mortal life should come to an end and pass over into the eternal. The Holy Prince descended with the rest to the Cenacle in Jerusalem and entered the oratory of The Great Lady, where they found Her prostrate on the ground in the form of a cross asking mercy for sinners.

6. The Most Holy Mary heard this message with ineffable jubilee of Her purest and most loving spirit, and, prostrating Herself again upon the earth, She answered in the same words as at the Incarnation of the Word: "Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum." "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done according to Thy word" (Luke 1, 38). Then She asked the Holy Angels and Ministers of the Most High to help Her give thanks for this welcome and joyful news.

7.  The Devout Queen resolved to take leave of the holy places before Her departure into Heaven, and having obtained the consent of Saint John She left the house with him and with the thousand Angels of Her guard. The Heavenly Princess, setting aside human occupations in order to enter upon Her journey to the real and true fatherland, visited all the memorable places of our Redemption, marking each with the sweet abundance of Her tears, recalling the sorrowful memories of what Her Son there suffered, and fervently renewing its effects by most fervent acts of love, clamors and petitions for all the faithful, who should devoutly and reverently visit these holy places during the future ages of the Church. On Calvary She remained a longer time, asking of Her Divine Son the full effects of His redeeming Death for all the multitudes of souls there snatched from destruction.  ...

8. Three days before the most happy Transition of the Great Lady the Apostles and Disciples gathered. The first one to arrive was Saint Peter, Who was transported from Rome by the hands of an Angel. At that place the Angel appeared to Him and told Him that the passing away of the Most Blessed Mary was imminent. Then came Saint Paul, to whom the Queen showed the same reverence with similar tokens of Her pleasure at seeing Him. The Apostles saluted Her as the Mother of God, as their Queen and as Mistress of all creation; but with a sorrow equal to their reverence, because they knew that they had come to witness Her passing away. After these Apostles came the others and the Disciples still living. Three days after, they were all assembled She received them with profound humility, reverence and love, asking each one to bless Her. All of them complied, and saluted Her with admirable reverence.

9.  They all betook themselves to the oratory of the Great Queen and found Her upon a couch, on which She was wont to recline for short rest. They saw Her full of beauty and celestial light, surrounded by the thousand Angels of Her guard. The natural condition and appearance of Her Sacred and Virginal Body were the same as at Her thirty-third year; for, from that age onward it experienced no change. The Apostles held a conference concerning the burial of their Queen and Lady. They selected for that purpose a new sepulchre, which had been prepared mysteriously by the providence of Her Divine Son.

10. Then the Purest Soul of the Queen, at the command of the Lord, entered the Virginal Body, reanimated it and raised it up, giving it a new life of immortality and glory and communicating to it the four gifts of Clearness, Impassability, Agility and Subtlety, corresponding to those of the soul and overflowing from it into the body.

Endowed with these gifts the Most Blessed Mary issued from the tomb in body and soul, without raising the stone cover and without disturbing the position of the tunic and the mantle that had enveloped Her Sacred Body.

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