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On this Feast of the Dormition and Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I have been enjoying a blog post entitled Blessed are the Pure in Heart by Dr. Peter Howard on the Spiritual direction.com website that I especially appreciate. It also includes an image of the Assumption of Mary by Corbert Gauthier that may appeal to those who do not usually relate to the typical Roman Catholic paintings of the same. Click here for the article by Dr. Howard wherein one may find the beautiful Gauthier painting.
I am spending most of this day ruminating upon the Falling-Asleep (Dormition) and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and how my Anglo-Catholic background leads me to think and feel about this solemnity. But chiefly I am contemplating how I relate to and love St. Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, who is our own Mother through Christ Jesus.
There is a short but passionate phrase from Thomas Traherne (the catholic-minded Anglican Priest-Poet of the mid seventeenth century) that is found in his 'Church's Year Book' which I think is worthy to pray and contemplate many times during the day of the Assumption and during the octave of the great feast which I knew once upon a time as Assumptiontide.
And first O Lord I praise and magnify thy Name
For the Most Holy Virgin-Mother of God,
who is the Highest of thy Saints.
The most Glorious of thy Creatures.
The most Perfect of all thy Works.
The nearest unto Thee in the Throne of God ...
Perhaps like me you will commit this to memory so that a prayer learnt by heart will become a prayer of the heart. Today and the week ahead is a good time to engrave this act of praise in our hearts and souls so that daily we may say the same to God Most High.
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