Ave Maria Meditations
May it never happen Most Holy Mother of God, that Heaven and earth, honored by your presence, and you, with your departure, leave men and women without your protection? No. It is impossible to think of such things. In fact, just as when you were in the world you did not feel foreign to the realities of Heaven, so too after you had emigrated from this world, you were not foreign to the possibility of communicating in spirit with mankind….
You did not at all abandon those to whom you had guaranteed salvation… in fact, your spirit lives in eternity and your flesh did not suffer the corruption of the tomb. You, O Mother, are close to all and protect all and although our eyes are unable to see you, we know, O Most Holy One, that you dwell among all of us and make yourself present in the most varied ways….
You, Mary, reveal your whole self, as is written, in your beauty. Your virginal body is entirely holy, entirely chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God so that, even for this reason, it is absolutely incorruptible. It is unchangeable since what was human in it has been taken up in incorruptibility, remaining alive and absolutely glorious, undamaged, and sharing in perfect life. Indeed, it was impossible that the one who had become the vase of God and the living temple of the most holy divinity of the Only Begotten One be enclosed in the sepulchre of the dead. On the other hand, we believe with certainty that you continue to walk with us.
St. Germanus of Constantinople
