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The End of All Things | The Queen of Heaven and Earth · Vox Liturgica

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  Vox Liturgica: The Liturgica Year by Dom Prosper Guerrege. The Octave of the Assumption. He alone who could understand Mary's holiness could appreciate her glory. But wisdom who presided over the formation of the abyss has not revealed to us the depth of that ocean beside which all the virtues of the just and all the graces lavish upon them are but streamlets. Nevertheless, the immensity of grace and merit, whereby the blessed Virgin's supernatural perfection stands quite apart from all others, gives us a right to conclude that she has an equal superiminence in glory which is always proportioned to the sanctity of the elect.
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  Whereas all the other predestined of our race are placed among the various ranks of the celestial hierarchy, the Holy Mother of God is exalted above all the choirs forming by herself a distinct order, a new heaven where the harmonies of angels and saints are far surpassed. In Mary, God is more glorified, better known, more loved than in all the rest of the universe. On this ground alone according to the order of creative providence which subordinates the less to the more perfect Mary is entitled to be queen of Earth and heaven. In this sense it is for her next to the man God that the world exists. The great theologian Cardinal de Lugo explaining the words of the saints on this subject dares to say, just as creating all things in his complacency for his Christ God made him the end of creatures.
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  So with due proportion we may say he drew the rest of the world out of nothing through the love of the Virgin Mother so that she too might thus be justly called the end of all things. As mother of God and at the same time his firstborn she had a right and title over his goods. As bride she ought to share his crown. The glorious Virgin says Saint Bernardine of Siena has as many subjects as the blessed Trinity has. Every creature whatever be its rank in creation, spiritual as the angels, rational as man, material as the heavenly bodies or the elements, heaven and earth, the reprobate in the blessed, all that springs from the power of God is subject to the Virgin.
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  For he who is the Son of God and of the blessed Virgin wishing so to say to make his mother's principality and some sort equal to his father's became God as he is the servant of Mary. If then it be true to say that everyone, even the virgin, obeys God, we may also convert the proposition and affirm that everyone, even God, obeys the Virgin. The Empire of Eternal Wisdom comprises, so the Holy Spirit tells us, the heavens, the earth, and the abyss. The same then is the appendage of Mary on this her crowning day. Like the divine wisdom to whom she gave flesh, she may glory in God.
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  He whose magnificence she once chanted today exalts her humility. The blessed one by excellence has become the honor of her people, the admiration of the saints, the glory of the armies of the most high. Together with the spouse, let her in her beauty march to victory. Let her triumph over the hearts of the mighty and the lowly. The giving of the world's scepter into her hands is no mere honor void of reality.
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  From this day forward, she commands and fights, protects the church, defends its head, upholds the ranks of the sacred militia, raises up saints, directs apostles, enlightens doctors, exterminates heresy, crushes hell. Let us hail our Queen. Let us sing her mighty deeds. Let us be docile to her. Above all let us love her and trust in her love.
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  Let us not fear that amidst the great interests of the spreading of God's kingdom, she will forget our littleness or our miseries. She knows all that takes place in the obscure corners in the furthest limits of her immense domain. From her title of universal cause under the Lord is rightly deduced the universality of her providence. Her charity could not possibly be defective as her love of God surpasses the love of all the elect So the tenderness of all mothers united centered upon an only child is nothing to the love wherewith Mary surrounds the least, the most forgotten, the most neglected of all the children of God who are her children too. She forestall them in her solicitude, listens at all times to their humble prayers, pursues them in their guilty flights, sustains their weakness, compassionates their ills, of body or of soul, sheds upon all men the heavenly favors whereof she is the treasury.
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  Let us then say to her in the words of one of her great servants, O most holy mother of God who has beautified heaven and earth in leaving this world thou has not abandoned man. Here below thou didst live in heaven. From heaven thou conversest with us, thrice happy those who contemplated thee and lived with the mother of life. But in the same way as thou didst dwell in the flesh with them of the first age, Thou now dwellest with us spiritually. We hear thy voice and all our voices reach thine ear, and thy continual protection over us makes thy presence evident.
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  Thou dost visit us. Thine eye is upon us all. And although our eyes cannot see thee, oh most holy one, yet thou art in the midst of us showing thyself in various ways to whosoever is worthy. Thy immaculate body come forth from the tomb hinders not the immaterial power, the most pure activity of that spirit of thine which being inseparable from the Holy Ghost breathes also where it will. Oh mother of God, receive the grateful homage of our joy and speak for thy children to him who has glorified thee.
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  Whatsoever thou askest of him, he will accomplish it by his divine power. May he be blessed forever. Let us honor the group of martyrs which forms the rearguard of our triumphant Queen, Timothy who came from Antioch to Rome, Hippolytus Bishop of Porto, and Symthorian the glory of Autun suffered for God at different periods and at different places but they gathered their palms on the same day of the year in the same heaven is now their abode. My son, my son, said his valiant mother to Symphorian, remember life eternal. Look up and see him who reigns in heaven.
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  They are not taking thy life away, but changing it into a better. Let us admire these heroes of our faith, and let us learn to walk like them, though by less painful paths, in the footsteps of our Lord and so to rejoice Mary. Prayer. We beseech thee, O Lord, to be appeased and to impart to us thy help and by the intercession of blessed Timothy, Hippolytus, and Symphorian thy martyrs extend over us the right hand of thy mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ, Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God through all ages of ages. Amen.
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  The inexhaustible Adam of Saint Victor gives us another sequence for the assumption. It was sung at Saint Victor on the octave day. Let us rejoice on this day whereon is celebrated the Assumption of Holy Mary. This day, this dear day, when from Earth she was translated into Heaven with joy. Exalted above the choirs of angels, she is set over all the citizens of Heaven.
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  She contemplates her Son in his beauty and prays for all the faithful. Let us cleanse away our stains that clean of heart we may take part in her praises. If our minds be in accord with our tongues her ears will be attentive to our voices. Let us then praise her with one accord and in her praise cry out, hail, full of grace. Hail, virgin mother of Christ who did conceive him by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
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  Holy Virgin, spotless Virgin, may the music of our voice be pleasing to thee. Bring us help from on high and after this life's course, unite us to thy son. O thou elect from all eternity long wast thou hidden in the shell of the letter of thee as future mother of Christ the prophets foretold in the script but in types. The mystery was unveiled when the word made flesh willed to be born of thee, who in his love did powerfully snatch us from the power of the wicked one. Thee by the throne of Solomon, Thee by the fleece of Gedeon, we believe to be foreshown, and by the bush unburnt, if ancient testament, we mystically ponder.
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  On the fleece, the dew descending, in the bush, the flame resplendent, yet neither hurt thereby was Christ assuming flesh in thee, yet not destroying thy purity by his birth. The flower that was to spring from thee the stem and benefit the world. Isaiah's saying, by the flower prefiguring Christ whose power everlasting neither began nor endeth. Thou art the reservoir of the fountain of life. Thou art a lamp burning and shining through thee the light supernal on us hath shed its ray burning with fire of charity, shining with light of chastity, bringing into the world thy sun, the light of supreme brightness.
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  O gate of our salvation, hear us and comfort us, and from our crooked ways hasten to call us back. We are calling on thee from the abyss, sailing on the sea of the world. From the furious enemy, deliver us by thy prayer. O Jesus, our salvation, by the incomparable merit of thy mother, deign to visit us in this valley with the gift of thy grace. Thou who willest that no one be condemned, grant us to steer our course so straightly through the sea that after death we may be worthy to be rewarded in thy rest.
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  Amen. The following prayer is remarkable for the symbolism wherewith it is inspired. It is used at the blessing of medicinal herbs and fruits given from time immemorial in certain places on the day of the assumption. O God, who on this day didst raise up to the height of heaven the rod of Jesse, the mother of thy son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in order that through her prayers and patronage, thou mightest communicate to our mortality the same. Thy son, the fruit of her womb.
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  We humbly beseech thee that by the power of this thy son and by the glorious patronage of his mother, we may, by the help of these fruits of the earth, be disposed by temporal health for eternal salvation through the same Christ our Lord. But let us close the radiant octave by hearing Mary herself speak in this beautiful antiphon appointed amongst others in certain manuscripts to accompany the Magnificat on the feast. Our Lady there appears not in her own name alone, but as representing the church which begins in her, its entrance in body and soul into heaven. The present happiness of the blessed virgin is the pledge for us all of the eternal felicity promised us. The triumph of the mother of God will not be complete until the last of her children has followed her into glory.
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  Let us then join in this prayer so full of sweet love. It is truly worthy to express the feelings of Mary as she crossed the threshold of her heavenly home. Mary exalted in spirit and said, I bless thee who art Lord over every blessing. I bless the dwelling of thy glory. I bless thee for whom was made a dwelling in my womb.
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  I bless all the works of thy hands, which obey thee in all subjugation. I bless thy love wherewith thou hast loved us. I bless all the words that have come forth from thy mouth and are given to us. For I believe in truth that as thou hast said, so shall it be done. Hallelujah.
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  And so we conclude Dom Guerringer's meditation on the Octave of the Assumption. If these words have drawn your heart more deeply into the mystery of Our Lady's glorious triumph and into the beauty of the church's traditional liturgy, I invite you to join us here at Vox Liturgica. Each day we journey through the liturgical cycle with daily proppers from the traditional Latin mass in both the 1962 and pre 1955 calendars together with further meditations drawn from the great masters of tradition. Vox Liturgica is an independent apostolate. It continues only through the humble generosity of those who find value in this work.
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  If you are able to support it, whether by a subscription, a share with others who love the liturgy, or a contribution, know that it is received with gratitude and offered back to God for the good of souls. And above all, please pray for me and for this apostolate. I am praying for you all. May the queen assumed into heaven keep you under her mantle and may almighty God bless you.