St Agnes High School - Agnita Yearbook (West Chester, PA)

Page 12 text:

THE AGNITA AGNITA STAFF Editor- it i - Ch iej Ellen T. Pennell Assistant Editor Elizabeth A. Souders Business Manager Assistant Business Manager Antoinette M. Clementi Barbara A. Rogevich Personals Joan M. Donnelly Mary P. Hague Shirley A. Kavanagh Class Patroness Mary, Assumed into Heaven Class Colors Blue and Gold Class Motto Ad Regem per Reginam Class Flower White Rose 6

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THE AGNITA A NEW DOGMA By Ellen T. Pennell The story I am about to relate may seem remote from our day and age, but it links with the incident which is foremost in Catholic minds today: The Proclamation of the Dogma of the Assumption. The setting of the story is the Council of Chalcedon, in Asia Minor; the time, 451 A.D. Into the midst of the deliberating Fathers walked the Roman Emperor Marcian. With eager eyes he searched the faces of the clergymen and then made a startling request. “Find for me,” he pleaded, “the body of God’s Mother. It is my imperial desire and determination to build for it a beautiful shrine. Surely, the immaculate body is the world’s most precious relic and deserves for its monument a mighty basilica. If you will find me the immaculate body of Mary, I will have it sealed in the sacred security of a golden casket and placed under an altar of marble and precious stones. Find for me, I beg of you, reverend Fathers, the body which was once the shrine of the Incarnate Word of God.” (Our Lady's Assumption, Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J.) After a moment of hesitation, St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem» began to give the Emperor a brief account of the Assumption as it had been passed down to the Christians of Jerusalem by their ancestors. According to this reverently cherished account, Mary died quietly and painlessly. She closed her eyes as if in sleep and went to be reunited with her Divine Son. The Apostles, who had as- sembled to be with their Queen for the last time on this earth, mingled tears with prayers at this temporal farewell and, in the cool of the evening, carried her body to the tomb and gently placed it in its grave. Thomas, however, was absent, as he had been once before- With a deep feeling of remorse that he had not seen Mother Mary before her leaving, he asked the other Apostles to accompany him to the tomb, so that he might again look upon that sweet face. Having arrived at the place of burial, they rolled back the stone, entered the doorway, and then stood motionless. The tomb was empty. Where the body had lain bloomed full-blown flowers. The air carried no scent of corruption, but perfume of an unearthly quality. Mary’s body was gone. The Apostles needed no explanation of this mystery. They went out from the tomb rejoicing in the honor that had been be- stowed upon their beloved Queen. They believed that, at the command of her Divine Son, Mary’s soul had reunited itself to her body, and that she who styled herself the “handmaid of the Lord” had been ushered into the presence of her Son in Heaven. 8