REFLECTIONS TODAY
In his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus (Nov. 1, 1950), Pope Pius XII declared as a divinely revealed dogma “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” (n 44). According to the Holy Father, this truth is based on the Sacred Scriptures, is thoroughly rooted in the minds of the faithful, has been approved in ecclesiastical worship from the most remote time, and is completely with the other revealed truths, and which has been expounded and explained magnificently in the work, the science, and the wisdom of the theologians (MD, 41).
First Reading • Rv 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab
…A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth. She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed One.”
Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2022,” St. Pauls, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; Fax 632-895-7328; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.