Jerome says in his sermon on her Assumption: “It is asked what the Blessed Virgin did after the Lord’s Ascension. It is certain that the holy Virgin remained. The angel Gabriel, as a heavenly bridal attendant, guarded her inviolate; John the Evangelist, a virgin, preserved the Virgin and served her with his ministrations.
“This does not mean that the choir of apostles deserted her. Among them she went in and out and familiarly recounted Christ’s Incarnation, doing so the more truly because from the beginning she had learned all things more fully through the Holy Spirit and had seen everything with her own eyes. Although all the disciples venerated and served her, John nevertheless did so more fully and spiritually to the end of her life.
“Moreover, as an example of human life, her manner of living was with the apostles until they were dispersed, as Luke recalls when he says: ‘All these were with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with the brethren.’ Behold, after Jesus ascended, she devoted herself with them in the school of virtues and meditated upon the law of God’s commandments, so that she too might be a form of Christ’s discipline and an example of perfection for virgins.
“She lived with the witnesses of the Resurrection and was herself a witness. She lived with the senators of heaven below in the court of paradise. Under the discipline of the Holy Spirit and the teaching of the whole divine majesty, she was found first among the foremost cohorts of the supreme King, for her life was already not of earth but of heaven.
“I think that whatever capacity of heart, mind, and human strength you might apply in its entirety would not suffice to conceive with how great and unceasing an ardor of holy love she burned, or how greatly she was moved, filled with the Holy Spirit, by the promptings of heavenly secrets, as she revolved in her soul everything she had heard, seen, and known.
“Every day she was inflamed by new affections of desire. Divine love had set her wholly aflame, so that there was nothing in her belonging to worldly affection, but continual ardor and a drunkenness suffused with love.
“Perhaps, therefore, we believe that because of her exceedingly great love she sometimes dwelt in the place where her Son is said to have been buried, so that her inward love might be fed by devout contemplation. For the place is situated midway, so that from there she could approach the traces of the Passion and visit the place of his burial and Ascension, or all the places in which he suffered.
“For although she was in the spirit, nevertheless while she lived in the flesh she was moved by the senses of the flesh and therefore was refreshed by visiting those places.” All these are Jerome’s words.
[Running head: Chapter Three, Folio 185.]
§ I: The Virgin’s Passing and Assumption
Concerning her passing, the same Jerome says in that sermon: “Nothing else can be ascertained as certain except that on this day, namely August 15, she departed from the body.
“Her tomb is shown in the middle of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which lies between Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives. A church has been built there in which everyone proclaims that she was buried, but the tomb is now shown to observers as empty.
“It is not known how, at what time, or by what persons her most sacred body was removed from there, or where it was translated, or whether it rose, although some wish to assert that she has already been raised and clothed with blessed immortality together with Christ. We are uncertain which of these things is more true. It is better, however, to entrust the whole matter to God than rashly to define by our own authority something we do not prove.” Thus far Jerome.
It is nevertheless commonly and piously held that she was raised and, glorified in soul and body, reigns with Christ in heaven. Bernard holds this in a sermon on the ground that if her body were not in heaven but had remained on earth, Christ would appear not to have honored his mother fittingly and to have granted her less than other saints.
For the bodies of apostles and other saints whose resting places and relics are known are frequently visited with great veneration, as is evident concerning the bodies of Peter, Paul, James, Antony, Nicholas, and others of this kind. Therefore, if the Virgin’s body had remained on earth, God would have revealed it so that everyone might visit it. But because it is said to have been glorified in heaven, it is not found on earth.
Augustine seems to hold the same opinion in a sermon, saying among other things: “Decay and the worm are a reproach of the human condition. Since Jesus is untouched by this reproach, the nature of Mary, which Jesus is proved to have assumed from her, is excepted from it.”
It is not clear in what year of her life she departed from the body, for three opinions are found.
Epiphanius asserts that she was seventy-two years old when she departed from the body. He says that she conceived Christ in the fourteenth year of her age, bore him in the fifteenth, was with her Son during the thirty-three years he lived, and survived for twenty-four years after her Son’s Ascension. These numbers joined together make seventy-two.
Blessed Elizabeth, however, asserts in her revelations that an angel disclosed to her that the Blessed Virgin departed from the body after one year and about four months, and then, after forty days, was raised in the body and ascended glorified into heaven.
The more common opinion is that she survived for twelve years after the Ascension and thus died at sixty years of age, untouched by the pain of death just as she was by corruption of the body. On the third day after her death she was raised and glorified in the body and ascended with Christ coming to meet her.
Many things concerning the manner of her death and burial are contained in the book called The Passing of Blessed Mary. But because that book is counted among the apocrypha, those things are therefore doubtful in their truth, as appears in Distinction 15, Sancta Romana, and are accordingly omitted.
Dionysius testifies, however, that the apostles were present at her passing and burial and performed that office with the highest devotion and veneration.
Concerning the honor shown to her by the heavenly court and by her Son at her passing, Jerome says in the sermon cited above:
“At her funeral the angels ministered, insofar as it is lawful to believe, and all the courts of heaven served. Nor is this marvelous, for the honor is shown to his mother by him who was born from her, whom every order of the heavens venerates.
“We read that angels very often came to the funerals of various saints and rendered service, and also bore the souls of the elect to heaven with praises and hymns. Moreover, those still living afterward perceived there for a long time the fragrance of a marvelous odor.
“How much more must it be believed that on this day the heavenly host came festively to meet the Mother of God with its companies, surrounded her with a great light, and led her with praises and spiritual songs to the throne prepared for her before the establishment of the world.
“No one doubts that the whole heavenly Jerusalem then exulted with ineffable joy, and deservedly so. For it is believed that the Savior himself came wholly festive to meet her and joyfully placed his mother upon a throne, so that he might fulfill the precept he had promulgated in the law: ‘Honor your father and your mother.’” Thus far Jerome.
Bernard also says in a sermon on the Assumption: “Who can explain with what songs she was led to the throne of glory; with how pleasing a countenance, how serene a face, and how joyful embraces she was received by her Son; and how she was exalted above every creature with the honor of which so great a mother was worthy and with the glory that befitted so great a Son?”
Jerome says: “This is the day on which the undefiled mother and Virgin advanced to the height of the throne and, raised upon the royal seat, gloriously sat after Christ.”
Thus the holy Church sings everywhere what it is lawful to believe of no other saint: that she passed beyond the merits of angels or archangels. Thus far Jerome.
Note that “archangels” here is not understood strictly, namely as the second order of angels, which order many saints surpass, but broadly, as the more principal spirits in every order. The Virgin Mary was indeed exalted above all the choirs of angels.
No miracles performed by her for others during her life are recorded, although her whole life was miraculous, since she sinned in nothing. But miracles of healing and the like do not make a person holier or more acceptable to God. Thus even John the Baptist did not shine with miracles during his life, although, as the Lord bears witness, no one greater arose among those born of women.
After her death, however, the most blessed Virgin shone and continues to shine with innumerable miracles, which we now omit. She is the advocate of humanity. Hence the Church sings: “Mediatrix of humanity and cleanser of crimes, pardon of sinners.” This is understood procuratively, not causatively, and through her merits and prayers. Elsewhere it sings: “You are the hope of the guilty, Mary,” and so forth—that is, the hope of assistance, because she ought to help us.