Friday, August 15, 2008

Pope: Feast of the Assumption, trip to Lourdes in view

08/15/2008 13:24
VATICAN

Benedict XVI will go to Lourdes, "universal citadel of life and of hope", in a month. The Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into heaven helps us to be "witnesses of hope and consolation" in a world dominated by "false joy and tormented suffering".

Castel Gandolfo (AsiaNews) - On the feast of the Assumption of Mary into heaven (body and soul), Benedict XVI recalled the "maternal solicitude" of the Virgin Mary toward "her children", especially "in their difficult times of trial". Visiting the shrines dedicated to her, the pope continued, one encounters many "witnesses" of this concern. "At this moment, I think especially of the unique universal citadel of life and of hope that is Lourdes, where, God willing, I will go in a month, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions that took place there".

In his reflection before the Angelus, from the courtyard of the pontifical residence in Castel Gandolfo, the pope also explained the biblical and theological foundations of this feast, which expresses a "firm conviction of the Church, [which] found its highest expression in the dogmatic definition of the Assumption, proclaimed by my venerable predecessor Pius XII in 1950".

The pontiff's explanations seemed to be intended to smooth over the difficulties that the Protestants and Orthodox have in accepting this dogma: "In the Bible, the last reference to her earthly life is found at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, which presents Mary gathered in prayer together with the disciples in the upper room, waiting for the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14). Following this, a twofold tradition - in Jerusalem and in Ephesus - attests to her 'dormition', as the Eastern [Christians] call it, her 'falling asleep' in God. This was the event that preceded her passage from earth into Heaven, which is the confession of the uninterrupted faith of the Church. In the eighth century, for example, John Damascene, establishing a direct relationship between the 'dormition' of Mary and the death of Jesus, explicitly affirms the truth of her bodily assumption. In a famous homily, he writes: 'It was necessary that she who had carried the Creator as a child in her womb should live together with Him in the tabernacles of heaven' (Homily II on the Dormition, PG 96, 741 B)".
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