Dormition of the Mother of God

No, no, no, no.

But my paper was talking about the embodied personhood in the anthropology of the Dormition and Assumption Narratives.

and that how we should apply this into our relationship with artificial intelligence.

Most importantly, I said that the church need neither fear this technology nor become its slave.

because we know exactly what humankind is prepared for, what our destiny is, and that's what we find in the Dormition narratives.

So I thought today, dear listeners, grab your tea, grab your bread and butter and soup, or your dairy milk, or your fruit and nut, or your nearest favorite Dominican, if you have one, and we'll deep dive into some of the more interesting narratives uh well i think the more interesting kind of text analysis of the blessed virgin mary now we've touched on some of this stuff before in patristic period pillars around the time of the assumption we've looked at a couple of the homilies of the um of the assumption but let's like sort of ask today where is all of this coming from So the earliest extant patristic discussion of the end of Our Lady's life comes from Epiphanius of Salamis.

He was writing against a group called the Antidicomarionites, which basically means the enemies of Mary, in chapter 78 of his Panarion.

outside of the church, you might think that there is no research academically going on in the Assumption.

And then I think then next week we might look at some stuff on Our Lady.

I'm actually presenting a paper on Our Lady on Wednesday at the Augustinianum on the Dormition narratives.

But it's a great little text here by Ildefonso of Toledo on the perpetual virginity of Maria.

And I think that it is in this month of the Rosary.

Well, having now demonstrated to you all that father toby and i are still in the first stage of the interior life and not showing

much sign of progressing

we'll move on to um that um let's see yeah that in this chapter dionysus is trying to emphasize okay that the idea of the divine light A very interesting kind of side reference in one of the Dormition narratives, it's the Ethiopic witness of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is reliably 5th century 400s, describes that when Mary completes her journey, Jesus gives her soul to St. Michael and her soul shines seven times whiter.

It says sevenfold white.

This is forty AD, and St. James, the Major, you know, the great patron there in Spain, he's still alive, and he's evangelizing in Spain, and our Blessed Mother is still on this earth.

She has not gone through her Dormition or her Assumption yet.

But, uh, she appears to St. James because he's, you know, he's having such a difficult time converting those pagans out in the Iberian Peninsula.

And she appears on a beautiful pillar, and she asks him to have a church built there where the people will come and, you know, worship her Son.

Yeah.

Hey, um, I, I am an iconographer and, um, that, that, uh, image that, uh, the person called about that shows Jesus holding, uh, a swaddled baby, that is part of the icon of the, of the Assumption or, or the Dormition, as they would call in the East.

In traditional Byzantine icons, you'll see, uh, Mary, uh, on her, her deathbed with the apostles gathered around, and then, uh, above that you'll see Jesus holding a swaddled baby.

But it's...

When the Grand Duke returned, he hastened to give thanks for the saint's prayers, gave a rich offering to the monastery, and in fulfillment of a vow made to the saint, established a monastery on the place chosen by St. Sergius, with the saint's disciple Sabas as abbot.

Many brothers joined the monastery, which was dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos, the Most Holy Mother of God.

At the same time, the Grand Duke Demetrius asked St. Sergius to come to Kolomna, the Grand Duke's native place, and build there on a place called Golutovino, a monastery dedicated to the Lord's Theophany.

This the saint did, going there by foot, as was his constant custom, and left his disciple, the priest monk Gregory, as abbot.

He, after his death, appeared to one of his disciples weeping, and said, "We don't realize how hard it is to attain salvation, um, because we waste so much time, and there's no time to waste."

Yeah, and it was reminding me just a few, yeah, a few weeks ago how we celebrated the Dormition and the end of the earthly life of the Theotokos, and we celebrate this feast at the end of one of the church's four fasting seasons, and each of these four f- fasting seasons has its particular challenges.

And the Dormition Fast often comes when our mind and heart can be focused on really enjoying the good things of the world, the summer, and vacations, and a more relaxed, and often with that, even more distracted mindset.

But the Dormition Fast reminds us that our earthly life, like the Theotokos, is also coming to an end.

And in the midst of the Dormition Fast, we also celebrate the Transfiguration, where we see the radiance of Christ's heavenly glory.

And these two feasts are connected.

At the Transfiguration, when we get a glimpse of the radiance of Christ, we're reminded that this is the goal of our life.

The time that we've been given here in this life is to listen to Him, and if we do, He promises also to transfigure our nature so that we too can shine with Him in heavenly glory for all eternity.