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CHAPTER III.--THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY.


By the Church of England, two festivals are observed in grateful
commemoration of two events relating to Mary as the mother of our
Lord:--the announcement of the Saviour's birth by the message of an
angel, called, "The Annunciation of the blessed Virgin Mary," and "The
Presentation of Christ in the Temple," called also, "The Purification of
Saint Mary the Virgin." In the service for the first of these
solemnities, we are taught to pray that, as we have known the
incarnation of the Son of God by the message of an angel, so by his
Cross and Passion we may be brought to the glory of his resurrection. In
the second, we humbly beseech the Divine Majesty that, as his
only-begotten Son was presented in the Temple in the substance of our
flesh, so we may be presented unto Him with pure and clean hearts by the
same, his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. These days are observed to
commemorate events declared to us on the most sure warrant of Holy
Scripture; and these prayers are primitive and evangelical. They pray
only to God for spiritual blessings through his Son. The second prayer
was used in the Church {297} from very early times, and is still
retained in the Roman Breviary (Hus. Brev. Rom. H. 536.); whereas,
instead of the first[103], we find there unhappily a prayer now
supplicating that those who offer it, "believing Mary to be truly the
Mother of God, might be aided by her intercessions with Him." [V. 496.]