Vigils Reading – Memorial of BVM

THE MOTHER

OF THE REDEEMER

From a homily by Amadeus of Lausanne

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Escorted amid such praises, she herself could not refrain from praising,

for she saw the Son of God, born of her, sitting on the right hand of his Father’s

majesty, receiving her with glory. ‘You have held she says, ‘my right hand, and ,̓

have led me according to your will and received me with glory’. And again: ‘He is

at my right hand lest I be moved. Therefore my heart has rejoiced and my

tongue has exulted. Still more my flesh shall rest in hope. Since you did not

abandon me in the world nor did you give your Mother’s body to see corruption.

But why do I linger over these things? To sum up much in a few words:

there was with the most glorious lady a word simple yet complex, a word

understandable, containing all the words of praise with which she herself

honored the Lord and Son with praise unutterable.

Exalted therefore with cries of exultation and praise, she is placed in her

seat of glory first after God, above all the company of heaven. There, having

taken again the substance of her flesh (for it is not lawful to believe that her body

saw corruption) and clothed with a double robe, she looks upon God and man in

his two natures with a gaze clearer than all others, inasmuch as it is more

burning than all, with the eyes of her soul and body.

Then coming down to the human race in ineffable charity and turning

upon us those eyes of pity with which heaven is brightened, she lifts her prayer

alike for clergy, for all men and women, for the living and for the departed. Here

from heaven is the glorious Virgin most powerful in prayer, driving away every

hurtful thing and bestowing what is good, and she grants to all who pray to her

from the heart her protection for this present life and for that to come.

For remembering for what purpose she was made the Mother of the

Redeemer, most willingly she gathers up the sinner’s prayers and pleads with

her Son for all the guilt of those who are penitent. Surely she will gain what she

wishes, the dear Mother through whose chaste womb the Word of God came to

us, the sin offering of the world, to wash away with his own blood the bond of

original sin, Jesus Christ Our Lord, who lives and reigns with God the Father in

the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.