Saturday, November 8 : Saint Germanus of Constantinople
Living Temple of the most holy divinity of the Only-begotten Son, Mother of God, with thanksgiving I say over and over again that your assumption has in no way set you apart from ordinary christians. You live on without decay yet do not dwell far from this decaying world. Instead, you are close to those who call on you and those who seek you in faith will find you. It was indeed fitting that your soul should always remain strong and alive and your body be immortal. For indeed, how could the dissolution of the flesh reduce you to dust and ashes when it was you who delivered mankind from the destruction of death through the incarnation of your Son?… Children watch out and long for their mothers, and mothers love to live with their children. In the same way, since you possessed a maternal love for your Son and your God in your heart, so you should naturally be able to return to his side and God, in his filial love for you, should very rightly allow you to share in his condition. Thus, dead to what has an end, you have transferred to the imperishable dwelling places of eternity where the God, whose life you will share from henceforth, has his home… You were his bodily home and now it is he who has become, in return, the place of your rest. “Here is my resting place for ever”, he said (Ps 132[131],14). The resting place of which he speaks is the flesh with which he clothed himself when he had taken it from you, O Mother of God; the flesh in which (as we believe) he revealed himself in the present world and will reveal himself again in the world to come when he comes to judge the living and the dead. Since you are the dwelling of his eternal repose, he removed all corruption from you and took you along with himself since he wished to keep you in his presence and his love. That is why he grants you all you ask of him as to a mother anxious about her children. And everything you wish for, he carries out by his divine power, he who is blessed for ever and ever.
Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team
