viernes, 25 de agosto de 2023

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF PIUS XII (LAST PART)



IN THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY

27. In addition, the scholastic doctors saw the Assumption of the Virgin Mother of God indicated not only in various figures from the Old Testament, but also in that Lady clothed with the sun, whom the apostle John contemplated on the island of Patmos (Ap 12, 1s.) In the same way, among the sayings of the New Testament they considered with particular interest the words "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among all women" (Lk 1, 28), because they saw in the mystery of the Assumption a complement to the fullness of grace granted to the blessed Virgin and a unique blessing, in opposition to the curse of Eve.

28. For this reason, at the beginning of scholastic theology, the pious Amadeo, bishop of Lausanne, affirms that the flesh of the Virgin Mary remained incorrupt ("it cannot be believed, in effect, that her body saw corruption"), because really her soul was reunited, and together with her she was enveloped in the highest glory in the heavenly court. She "was full of grace and blessed among women" (Lk 1, 28). "She alone deserved to conceive the true God from the true God, and she gave birth to him as a virgin, she nursed him as a virgin, holding him close to her bosom, and rendered her holy services and homages in all of her" (13).

29. Among the sacred writers who at this time, using scriptural texts or similarity and analogy, illustrated and confirmed the pious belief in the Assumption, the evangelical doctor San Antonio de Padua occupies a special position. On the Feast of the Assumption, commenting on the words of Isaiah "I will glorify the place of my feet" (Is 60, 13), he confidently affirmed that the divine Redeemer has exalted his most beloved Mother, from whom he had taken flesh. human. "From this it clearly follows, says he, that the blessed Virgin Mary was assumed with the body which had been the place of the Lord's feet." That is why the psalmist writes: "Come, ¡oh Lord!, to your rest, you and the Ark of your sanctification". Like Jesus Christ, says the saint, he rose from the conquered death and ascended to the right hand of his Father,

30. When scholastic theology reached its maximum splendor in the Middle Ages, Saint Albert the Great, after having collected, to prove this truth, various arguments based on Sacred Scripture, tradition, liturgy and theological reason, concluded: " From these reasons and authorities and from many others it is clear that the most blessed Mother of God was assumed in body and soul above the choirs of angels.

And we believe this as absolutely true" (15). And in a speech given on the day of the Annunciation of Mary, explaining these words of the angel's greeting "Hail, full of grace...", the Universal Doctor compares the Blessed Virgin with Eve and expressly says that she was immune from the fourfold curse to which Eve was subjected (16).

31. The Angelic Doctor, following the traces of his distinguished teacher, although he never expressly dealt with the question, nevertheless, whenever he occasionally speaks of it, he constantly maintains with the Church that together with the soul, the body of Mary was also a matter of heaven (17).

32. The Seraphic Doctor is of the same opinion, among many others, who maintains as absolutely certain that in the same way that God preserved Mary Most Holy from the violation of modesty and virginal integrity in conception and childbirth, so he did not allow his body to decay into rot and ash (18). Interpreting and applying to the blessed Virgin these words of the Sacred Scripture "Who is that that rises from the desert, full of delights, leaning on her beloved?" (Cant 8, 5), reasons as follows: "And from this it can be established that he is there (in the celestial city) bodily... Because, in effect..., happiness would not be complete if he were not there personally, because the person is not the soul, but the compound, and it is clear that it is there according to the compound, that is, with body and soul,

33. In later scholasticism, that is, in the 15th century, Saint Bernardino of Siena, summarizing everything that the theologians of the Middle Ages had said and discussed in this regard, did not limit himself to recalling the main considerations already proposed by the doctors precedents, but added others. That is to say, the similarity of the divine Mother with the divine Son, in terms of the nobility and dignity of the soul and the body -because it cannot be thought that the celestial Queen is separated from the King of heaven-, openly demands that "Mary should only be where Christ is" (20); besides, it is reasonable and convenient that the soul and the body, as well as the man, the woman, are already glorified in heaven; anyway,

34. In more recent times, the aforementioned opinions of the Holy Fathers and of the doctors were in common use. Adhering to the Christian thought transmitted from the past centuries. St. Roberto Bellarmine exclaims: "And who, ¿I ask, could believe that the ark of holiness, the domicile of the Word, the temple of the Holy Spirit, ¿has fallen? My soul hates the mere thought that that virgin flesh that engendered God, gave birth to it, fed it, carried it, has been reduced to ashes or has been fed to worms" (22).

35. In the same way, Saint Francis de Sales, after having affirmed that it is not lawful to doubt that Jesus Christ has executed in the most perfect way the divine mandate by which the duty of honoring their own parents is imposed on children, proposes this He asks: "Who is the son who, if he could, would not call his own mother back to life and would not take her with him after death to paradise?" (23). And San  Alfonso writes: "Jesus preserved the body of Mary from corruption, because it redounded to his dishonor that that virginal flesh with which He had clothed himself should be eaten from rottenness" (24).

36. Having clarified the purpose of this festival, there was no lack of doctors who, rather than dealing with the theological reasons, in which the supreme convenience of the bodily Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary into heaven is demonstrated, directed their attention to the faith of the Church, mystical Bride of Christ, who has no spot or wrinkle (cf. Eph 5, 27), which is called by the Apostle "pillar and support of the truth" (1 Tim).

3, 15), and, supported by this common faith, they maintained that the opposite sentence was reckless, not to say heretical. Indeed, Saint Peter Canisius, among many others, after having declared that the term Assumption means glorification not only of the soul, but also of the body, and after having highlighted that the Church has venerated and celebrated for many centuries solemnly addressing this Marian mystery, says: "This sentence has already been accepted for some centuries and in such a way fixed in the souls of the pious faithful and so accepted throughout the Church, that those who deny that the body of Mary was a matter for heaven, they cannot even be listened to patiently, but embarrassed as too stubborn or altogether reckless and animated with a heretical rather than a Catholic spirit" (25).

37. At the same time, Doctor Eximio, established as a rule of Mariology that "the mysteries of grace that God has wrought in the Virgin are not measured by ordinary laws, but by the omnipotence of God, assuming the convenience of the thing itself and excluding any contradiction or repugnance on the part of Sacred Scripture" (26), basing himself on the faith of the Church in the subject of the Assumption, he could conclude that this mystery should be believed with the same firmness of soul with that the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin should be believed, and even then he maintained that these two truths could be defined.

38. All these reasons and considerations of the Holy Fathers and theologians have as their ultimate foundation Sacred Scripture, which presents us with the soul of the Mother of God closely united to her Son and always a sharer in his fate. From which it seems almost impossible to imagine oneself separated from Christ, if not with the soul, at least with the body, after this life, to the One who conceived him, gave birth to him, nourished him with her milk, carried him in her arms and she clutched it to her chest. From the moment that our Redeemer is the son of Mary, he could not, certainly, as a most perfect observer of the divine law, honor less, in addition to the Eternal Father, also his beloved Mother. Being able, then, to give her Mother so much honor by preserving her immune from the corruption of the sepulchre, it must be believed that she really did it.

39. But it has already been especially remembered that since the second century the Virgin Mary is presented by the Holy Fathers as the new Eve closely united to the new Adam, although subject to him, in that fight against the infernal enemy that, as foretold in the protoevangelium (Gn 3, 15), would have ended with the most complete victory over sin and death, always united in the writings of the Apostle to the Gentiles (cf. Rom cap. 5 et 6; 1 Cor 15, 21-26; 54-57). Therefore, as the glorious resurrection of Christ was an essential part and final sign of this victory, so also for Mary the common struggle had to conclude with the glorification of her virginal body; because, as the same Apostle says, "when... this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then what was written will happen:

40. In this way, the august Mother of God, arcanely united to Jesus Christ from all eternity "with the same decree" (27) of predestination, immaculate in her conception, Virgin without stain in her divine maternity, generous Partner of the divine Redeemer , who obtained full triumph over sin and its consequences, finally, as the supreme crowning of her privileges, was preserved from the corruption of the grave and defeated death, as before by her Son, she was elevated in soul and body to the glory of heaven, where she shines as Queen at the right hand of her Son, immortal King of the centuries (cf. 1 Tim 1, 17).

41. And like the universal Church, in which the Spirit of Truth lives, who leads her infallibly to the knowledge of revealed truths, in the course of the centuries she has manifested her faith in many ways, and like the bishops of the Catholic world, With almost unanimous consent, they ask that the truth of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven be defined as a dogma of divine and Catholic faith. -truth founded on Sacred Scripture, deeply rooted in the soul of the faithful, confirmed by ecclesiastical worship since ancient times, highly in line with other revealed truths, splendidly illustrated and explained by the study of science and the wisdom of theologians- We believe that the time pre-established by God's providence has come to solemnly proclaim this privilege of the Virgin Mary.

42. We, who have placed our pontificate under the special patronage of the Blessed Virgin, to whom we have turned in so many sad contingencies; We, who with a public rite have consecrated the entire human race to her Immaculate Heart and have repeatedly experienced her valid protection, have firm confidence that this solemn proclamation and definition of the Assumption will be of great benefit to all Humanity, because it will give glory to the Most Holy Trinity, to which the Virgin Mother of God is linked by unique ties. It is indeed to be hoped that all Christians will be stimulated to a greater devotion to the Heavenly Mother and that the hearts of all those who glory of the Christian name is moved to desire union with the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and the increase of one's own love towards the One who has maternal entrails for all the members of that august Body. It is also to be hoped that all those who meditate on the glorious examples of Mary will become more and more convinced of the value of human life, if it is given totally to the execution of the will of the Heavenly Father and for the good of our neighbors; that, while materialism and the corruption of the customs derived from it threaten to submerge all virtue and wreak havoc in human lives, causing wars, the exalted purpose of bodies and souls is placed before the eyes of all; Finally, faith in the bodily Assumption of Mary into heaven makes faith in our resurrection firmer and more active.

43. The providential coincidence of this solemn event with the Holy Year that is unfolding is particularly pleasing to us; because this allows us to adorn the forehead of the Virgin Mother of God with this brilliant pearl, while celebrating the maximum jubilee, and to leave a perennial monument of our ardent piety towards the Mother of God.

44. Therefore, after raising many and repeated prayers to God and invoking the light of the Spirit of Truth, to the glory of Almighty God, who granted the Virgin Mary his peculiar benevolence; for the honor of her Son, immortal King of the centuries and victor of sin and death; In order to increase the glory of this very august Mother and for the joy and happiness of the whole Church, by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul and by ours, we pronounce, declare and define to be a dogma of divine revelation that The Immaculate Mother of God, ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

45. Therefore, if anyone, God forbid, dares to voluntarily deny or question what has been defined by Us, know that they have fallen from the divine and Catholic faith.

46. ​​In order for our definition of the bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven to be brought to the knowledge of the universal Church, we have wanted this our apostolic letter to be on record for perpetual memory; ordering that their copies and copies, even printed, signed by the hand of any notary public and adorned with the seal of any person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, be absolutely given by all the same faith that would be given to the present if it were exhibited or shown .

47. No one, then, is lawful to violate this our declaration, proclamation and definition or to oppose or contravene it. If anyone dares to try it, know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God and his holy apostles Peter and Paul.

We, PIO, Bishop of the Catholic Church, defining it thus, have signed it.

Given in Rome, together with Saint Peter, the year of the greatest Jubilee of one thousand nine hundred and fifty, on the first day of the month of November, the feast of All Saints, the twelfth year of our pontificate.

 

Grades.

12. Cf. Ioan Damasc., Encomium in Dormitionem Dei Genitricis semperque Virginis Mariae, hom. II, 2, 11;

Encomium in Dormitionem, S. Modesto Hierosol, attributum.

13. Amadeus Lausannensis, De Beatae Virginis obitu, Assumptione in caelum, exaltatione ad Filii dexteram.

14. Saint Antonius Patav., Sunday sermons et in solemnitatibus. In Assumptione S. Mariae Virginit sermo.

15. S. Albertus Magnus, Mariale sive quaestionet super Evang. Missut est, q. 132.

16. S. Albertus Magnus, Sermones de sanctis, sermon 15: In Anuntiatione B. Mariae, cfr. Etiam Mariale, Q. 132.

17. Cf. Summa Theol., 3, q. 27, a. 1 C.; ibid., q. 83, a. 5 ad 8, Expositio salutationis angelicae, In symb.,

Apostolorum expositio, art. 5; In IV Sent., d. 12, Q. 1, art. 3, sun. 3; d: 43, q. 1, art. 3, sun. 1 and 2.

18. Cf. S. Bonaventura, De Nativitate B. Mariae Virginis, sermon 5.

19. S. Bonaventura, De Assumptione B. Mariae Virginis, sermon 1.

20. S. Bernardinus Senens., In Assumptione BM Virginis, sermon 2.

21. S. Bernardinus Senens., In Assumptione BM Virginis, sermon 2.

 

 

 

  

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