Vigils Reading – Assumption of the BVM

FROM ESTEEM TO ESTEEM

From a homily by Amadeus of Lausanne

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Who would not hasten, who would not run from the ends of the earth to

gaze upon the beauty of the venerable majesty [of the Mother of God] and to

behold the countenance endowed with all manner of sweetness and with

commanding dignity and unique power? Indeed, nothing was found like to her

among the sons and daughters of Adam, none such among the prophets,

apostles or angels. Heaven and earth have put forth nothing like her. Who in the

clouds would equal her, or be like the Mother of the Lord among the sons of

God?

And see how fittingly before her Assumption her wonderful name blazed

forth in the whole world and her renown was everywhere spread abroad before

her grandeur was raised above the heavens. For it was fitting that the Virgin

Mother, for the honor of her Son, should reign first upon earth and then, at last,

receive the heavens with glory; should tarry in the depths that she might enter

the heights in the fullness of sanctity; and just as she was carried from virtue to

virtue, so by the Spirit of the Lord [should she] be borne from esteem to esteem.

While present in the flesh she tasted in advance the first-fruits of the

future kingdom; now [she is] going forth to God in unspeakable sublimity, now

in wondrous charity condescending to her neighbors. On the one side she was

attended by the services of angels, on the other venerated by the devotion of

man. Gabriel, the groomsman, with the angels was at her side; John, with the

apostles, ministered to her, rejoicing that at the cross the Virgin Mother was

entrusted to him. [The angels] rejoiced to see their queen; [the apostles

rejoiced] to see their lady, and all obeyed her with pious devotion.

But she, dwelling in the lofty citadel of the virtues and enriched by an

ocean of divine gifts, poured out in generous diffusion upon a believing and

thirsting people an abyss of graces, in which she surpassed all others. She

brought health to their bodies and cure to their souls, being powerful to raise

them from the death of body and soul. Who ever went away from her sick or sad

and not knowing heavenly mysteries? Who did not return to his home glad and

joyful, having obtained from the Mother of God his wish?