Wednesday 29 June 2022

"Munificentissimus Deus" by Pope Pius XII (translated into English)

November 1, 1950

 

1. The most bountiful God, who is almighty, the plan of whose providence rests upon wisdom and love, tempers, in the secret purpose of his own mind, the sorrows of peoples and of individual men by means of joys that he interposes in their lives from time to time, in such a way that, under different conditions and in different ways, all things may work together unto good for those who love him.(1)

2. Now, just like the present age, our pontificate is weighed down by ever so many cares, anxieties, and troubles, by reason of very severe calamities that have taken place and by reason of the fact that many have strayed away from truth and virtue. Nevertheless, we are greatly consoled to see that, while the Catholic faith is being professed publicly and vigorously, piety toward the Virgin Mother of God is flourishing and daily growing more fervent, and that almost everywhere on earth it is showing indications of a better and holier life. Thus, while the Blessed Virgin is fulfilling in the most affectionate manner her maternal duties on behalf of those redeemed by the blood of Christ, the minds and the hearts of her children are being vigorously aroused to a more assiduous consideration of her prerogatives.

3. Actually God, who from all eternity regards Mary with a most favorable and unique affection, has "when the fullness of time came"(2) put the plan of his providence into effect in such a way that all the privileges and prerogatives he had granted to her in his sovereign generosity were to shine forth in her in a kind of perfect harmony. And, although the Church has always recognized this supreme generosity and the perfect harmony of graces and has daily studied them more and more throughout the course of the centuries, still it is in our own age that the privilege of the bodily Assumption into heaven of Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, has certainly shone forth more clearly.

4. That privilege has shone forth in new radiance since our predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the loving Mother of God's Immaculate Conception. These two privileges are most closely bound to one another. Christ overcame sin and death by his own death, and one who through Baptism has been born again in a supernatural way has conquered sin and death through the same Christ. Yet, according to the general rule, God does not will to grant to the just the full effect of the victory over death until the end of time has come. And so it is that the bodies of even the just are corrupted after death, and only on the last day will they be joined, each to its own glorious soul.

5. Now God has willed that the Blessed Virgin Mary should be exempted from this general rule. She, by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.

6. Thus, when it was solemnly proclaimed that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, was from the very beginning free from the taint of original sin, the minds of the faithful were filled with a stronger hope that the day might soon come when the dogma of the Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven would also be defined by the Church's supreme teaching authority.

7. Actually it was seen that not only individual Catholics, but also those who could speak for nations or ecclesiastical provinces, and even a considerable number of the Fathers of the Vatican Council, urgently petitioned the Apostolic See to this effect.

8. During the course of time such postulations and petitions did not decrease but rather grew continually in number and in urgency. In this cause there were pious crusades of prayer. Many outstanding theologians eagerly and zealously carried out investigations on this subject either privately or in public ecclesiastical institutions and in other schools where the sacred disciplines are taught. Marian Congresses, both national and international in scope, have been held in many parts of the Catholic world. These studies and investigations have brought out into even clearer light the fact that the dogma of the Virgin Mary's Assumption into heaven is contained in the deposit of Christian faith entrusted to the Church. They have resulted in many more petitions, begging and urging the Apostolic See that this truth be solemnly defined.

9. In this pious striving, the faithful have been associated in a wonderful way with their own holy bishops, who have sent petitions of this kind, truly remarkable in number, to this See of the Blessed Peter. Consequently, when we were elevated to the throne of the supreme pontificate, petitions of this sort had already been addressed by the thousands from every part of the world and from every class of people, from our beloved sons the Cardinals of the Sacred College, from our venerable brethren, archbishops and bishops, from dioceses and from parishes.

10. Consequently, while we sent up earnest prayers to God that he might grant to our mind the light of the Holy Spirit, to enable us to make a decision on this most serious subject, we issued special orders in which we commanded that, by corporate effort, more advanced inquiries into this matter should be begun and that, in the meantime, all the petitions about the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven which had been sent to this Apostolic See from the time of Pius IX, our predecessor of happy memory, down to our own days should be gathered together and carefully evaluated.(3)

11. And, since we were dealing with a matter of such great moment and of such importance, we considered it opportune to ask all our venerable brethren in the episcopate directly and authoritatively that each of them should make known to us his mind in a formal statement. Hence, on May 1, 1946, we gave them our letter "Deiparae Virginis Mariae," a letter in which these words are contained: "Do you, venerable brethren, in your outstanding wisdom and prudence, judge that the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin can be proposed and defined as a dogma of faith? Do you, with your clergy and people, desire it?"

12. But those whom "the Holy Spirit has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God"(4) gave an almost unanimous affirmative response to both these questions. This "outstanding agreement of the Catholic prelates and the faithful,"(5) affirming that the bodily Assumption of God's Mother into heaven can be defined as a dogma of faith, since it shows us the concordant teaching of the Church's ordinary doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people which the same doctrinal authority sustains and directs, thus by itself and in an entirely certain and infallible way, manifests this privilege as a truth revealed by God and contained in that divine deposit which Christ has delivered to his Spouse to be guarded faithfully and to be taught infallibly.(6) Certainly this teaching authority of the Church, not by any merely human effort but under the protection of the Spirit of Truth,(7) and therefore absolutely without error, carries out the commission entrusted to it, that of preserving the revealed truths pure and entire throughout every age, in such a way that it presents them undefiled, adding nothing to them and taking nothing away from them. For, as the Vatican Council teaches, "the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter in such a way that, by his revelation, they might manifest new doctrine, but so that, by his assistance, they might guard as sacred and might faithfully propose the revelation delivered through the apostles, or the deposit of faith."(8) Thus, from the universal agreement of the Church's ordinary teaching authority we have a certain and firm proof, demonstrating that the Blessed Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven- which surely no faculty of the human mind could know by its own natural powers, as far as the heavenly glorification of the virginal body of the loving Mother of God is concerned-is a truth that has been revealed by God and consequently something that must be firmly and faithfully believed by all children of the Church. For, as the Vatican Council asserts, "all those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written Word of God or in Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church, either in solemn judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching office, as divinely revealed truths which must be believed."(9)

13. Various testimonies, indications and signs of this common belief of the Church are evident from remote times down through the course of the centuries; and this same belief becomes more clearly manifest from day to day.

14. Christ's faithful, through the teaching and the leadership of their pastors, have learned from the sacred books that the Virgin Mary, throughout the course of her earthly pilgrimage, led a life troubled by cares, hardships, and sorrows, and that, moreover, what the holy old man Simeon had foretold actually came to pass, that is, that a terribly sharp sword pierced her heart as she stood under the cross of her divine Son, our Redeemer. In the same way, it was not difficult for them to admit that the great Mother of God, like her only begotten Son, had actually passed from this life. But this in no way prevented them from believing and from professing openly that her sacred body had never been subject to the corruption of the tomb, and that the august tabernacle of the Divine Word had never been reduced to dust and ashes. Actually, enlightened by divine grace and moved by affection for her, God's Mother and our own dearest Mother, they have contemplated in an ever clearer light the wonderful harmony and order of those privileges which the most provident God has lavished upon this loving associate of our Redeemer, privileges which reach such an exalted plane that, except for her, nothing created by God other than the human nature of Jesus Christ has ever reached this level.

15. The innumerable temples which have been dedicated to the Virgin Mary assumed into heaven clearly attest this faith. So do those sacred images, exposed therein for the veneration of the faithful, which bring this unique triumph of the Blessed Virgin before the eyes of all men. Moreover, cities, dioceses, and individual regions have been placed under the special patronage and guardianship of the Virgin Mother of God assumed into heaven. In the same way, religious institutes, with the approval of the Church, have been founded and have taken their name from this privilege. Nor can we pass over in silence the fact that in the Rosary of Mary, the recitation of which this Apostolic See so urgently recommends, there is one mystery proposed for pious meditation which, as all know, deals with the Blessed Virgin's Assumption into heaven.

16. This belief of the sacred pastors and of Christ's faithful is universally manifested still more splendidly by the fact that, since ancient times, there have been both in the East and in the West solemn liturgical offices commemorating this privilege. The holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church have never failed to draw enlightenment from this fact since, as everyone knows, the sacred liturgy, "because it is the profession, subject to the supreme teaching authority within the Church, of heavenly truths, can supply proofs and testimonies of no small value for deciding a particular point of Christian doctrine."(10)

17. In the liturgical books which deal with the feast either of the dormition or of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin there are expressions that agree in testifying that, when the Virgin Mother of God passed from this earthly exile to heaven, what happened to her sacred body was, by the decree of divine Providence, in keeping with the dignity of the Mother of the Word Incarnate, and with the other privileges she had been accorded. Thus, to cite an illustrious example, this is set forth in that sacramentary which Adrian I, our predecessor of immortal memory, sent to the Emperor Charlemagne. These words are found in this volume: "Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, who has begotten your Son our Lord incarnate from herself."(11)

18. What is here indicated in that sobriety characteristic of the Roman liturgy is presented more clearly and completely in other ancient liturgical books. To take one as an example, the Gallican sacramentary designates this privilege of Mary's as "an ineffable mystery all the more worthy of praise as the Virgin's Assumption is something unique among men." And, in the Byzantine liturgy, not only is the Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption connected time and time again with the dignity of the Mother of God, but also with the other privileges, and in particular with the virginal motherhood granted her by a singular decree of God's Providence. "God, the King of the universe, has granted you favors that surpass nature. As he kept you a virgin in childbirth, thus he has kept your body incorrupt in the tomb and has glorified it by his divine act of transferring it from the tomb."(12)

19. The fact that the Apostolic See, which has inherited the function entrusted to the Prince of the Apostles, the function of confirming the brethren in the faith,(13) has by its own authority, made the celebration of this feast ever more solemn, has certainly and effectively moved the attentive minds of the faithful to appreciate always more completely the magnitude of the mystery it commemorates. So it was that the Feast of the Assumption was elevated from the rank which it had occupied from the beginning among the other Marian feasts to be classed among the more solemn celebrations of the entire liturgical cycle. And, when our predecessor St. Sergius I prescribed what is known as the litany, or the stational procession, to be held on four Marian feasts, he specified together the Feasts of the Nativity, the Annunciation, the Purification, and the Dormition of the Virgin Mary.(14) Again, St. Leo IV saw to it that the feast, which was already being celebrated under the title of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother of God, should be observed in even a more solemn way when he ordered a vigil to be held on the day before it and prescribed prayers to be recited after it until the octave day. When this had been done, he decided to take part himself in the celebration, in the midst of a great multitude of the faithful.(15) Moreover, the fact that a holy fast had been ordered from ancient times for the day prior to the feast is made very evident by what our predecessor St. Nicholas I testifies in treating of the principal fasts which "the Holy Roman Church has observed for a long time, and still observes."(16)

20. However, since the liturgy of the Church does not engender the Catholic faith, but rather springs from it, in such a way that the practices of the sacred worship proceed from the faith as the fruit comes from the tree, it follows that the holy Fathers and the great Doctors, in the homilies and sermons they gave the people on this feast day, did not draw their teaching from the feast itself as from a primary source, but rather they spoke of this doctrine as something already known and accepted by Christ's faithful. They presented it more clearly. They offered more profound explanations of its meaning and nature, bringing out into sharper light the fact that this feast shows, not only that the dead body of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt, but that she gained a triumph out of death, her heavenly glorification after the example of her only begotten Son, Jesus Christ-truths that the liturgical books had frequently touched upon concisely and briefly.

21. Thus St. John Damascene, an outstanding herald of this traditional truth, spoke out with powerful eloquence when he compared the bodily Assumption of the loving Mother of God with her other prerogatives and privileges. "It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father. It was fitting that God's Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God."(17)

22. These words of St. John Damascene agree perfectly with what others have taught on this same subject. Statements no less clear and accurate are to be found in sermons delivered by Fathers of an earlier time or of the same period, particularly on the occasion of this feast. And so, to cite some other examples, St. Germanus of Constantinople considered the fact that the body of Mary, the virgin Mother of God, was incorrupt and had been taken up into heaven to be in keeping, not only with her divine motherhood, but also with the special holiness of her virginal body. "You are she who, as it is written, appears in beauty, and your virginal body is all holy, all chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God, so that it is henceforth completely exempt from dissolution into dust. Though still human, it is changed into the heavenly life of incorruptibility, truly living and glorious, undamaged and sharing in perfect life."(18) And another very ancient writer asserts: "As the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Savior and God and the giver of life and immortality, has been endowed with life by him, she has received an eternal incorruptibility of the body together with him who has raised her up from the tomb and has taken her up to himself in a way known only to him."(19)

23. When this liturgical feast was being celebrated ever more widely and with ever increasing devotion and piety, the bishops of the Church and its preachers in continually greater numbers considered it their duty openly and clearly to explain the mystery that the feast commemorates, and to explain how it is intimately connected with the other revealed truths.

24. Among the scholastic theologians there have not been lacking those who, wishing to inquire more profoundly into divinely revealed truths and desirous of showing the harmony that exists between what is termed the theological demonstration and the Catholic faith, have always considered it worthy of note that this privilege of the Virgin Mary's Assumption is in wonderful accord with those divine truths given us in Holy Scripture.

25. When they go on to explain this point, they adduce various proofs to throw light on this privilege of Mary. As the first element of these demonstrations, they insist upon the fact that, out of filial love for his mother, Jesus Christ has willed that she be assumed into heaven. They base the strength of their proofs on the incomparable dignity of her divine motherhood and of all those prerogatives which follow from it. These include her exalted holiness, entirely surpassing the sanctity of all men and of the angels, the intimate union of Mary with her Son, and the affection of preeminent love which the Son has for his most worthy Mother.

26. Often there are theologians and preachers who, following in the footsteps of the holy Fathers,(20) have been rather free in their use of events and expressions taken from Sacred Scripture to explain their belief in the Assumption. Thus, to mention only a few of the texts rather frequently cited in this fashion, some have employed the words of the psalmist: "Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark, which you have sanctified"(21); and have looked upon the Ark of the Covenant, built of incorruptible wood and placed in the Lord's temple, as a type of the most pure body of the Virgin Mary, preserved and exempt from all the corruption of the tomb and raised up to such glory in heaven. Treating of this subject, they also describe her as the Queen entering triumphantly into the royal halls of heaven and sitting at the right hand of the divine Redeemer.(22) Likewise they mention the Spouse of the Canticles "that goes up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense" to be crowned.(23) These are proposed as depicting that heavenly Queen and heavenly Spouse who has been lifted up to the courts of heaven with the divine Bridegroom.

27. Moreover, the scholastic Doctors have recognized the Assumption of the Virgin Mother of God as something signified, not only in various figures of the Old Testament, but also in that woman clothed with the sun whom John the Apostle contemplated on the Island of Patmos.(24) Similarly they have given special attention to these words of the New Testament: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women,"(25) since they saw, in the mystery of the Assumption, the fulfillment of that most perfect grace granted to the Blessed Virgin and the special blessing that countered the curse of Eve.

28. Thus, during the earliest period of scholastic theology, that most pious man, Amadeus, Bishop of Lausarme, held that the Virgin Mary's flesh had remained incorrupt-for it is wrong to believe that her body has seen corruption-because it was really united again to her soul and, together with it, crowned with great glory in the heavenly courts. "For she was full of grace and blessed among women. She alone merited to conceive the true God of true God, whom as a virgin, she brought forth, to whom as a virgin she gave milk, fondling him in her lap, and in all things she waited upon him with loving care."(26)

29. Among the holy writers who at that time employed statements and various images and analogies of Sacred Scripture to Illustrate and to confirm the doctrine of the Assumption, which was piously believed, the Evangelical Doctor, St. Anthony of Padua, holds a special place. On the feast day of the Assumption, while explaining the prophet's words: "I will glorify the place of my feet,"(27) he stated it as certain that the divine Redeemer had bedecked with supreme glory his most beloved Mother from whom he had received human flesh. He asserts that "you have here a clear statement that the Blessed Virgin has been assumed in her body, where was the place of the Lord's feet. Hence it is that the holy Psalmist writes: 'Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark which you have sanctified."' And he asserts that, just as Jesus Christ has risen from the death over which he triumphed and has ascended to the right hand of the Father, so likewise the ark of his sanctification "has risen up, since on this day the Virgin Mother has been taken up to her heavenly dwelling."(28)

30. When, during the Middle Ages, scholastic theology was especially flourishing, St. Albert the Great who, to establish this teaching, had gathered together many proofs from Sacred Scripture, from the statements of older writers, and finally from the liturgy and from what is known as theological reasoning, concluded in this way: "From these proofs and authorities and from many others, it is manifest that the most blessed Mother of God has been assumed above the choirs of angels. And this we believe in every way to be true."(29) And, in a sermon which he delivered on the sacred day of the Blessed Virgin Mary's annunciation, explained the words "Hail, full of grace"-words used by the angel who addressed her-the Universal Doctor, comparing the Blessed Virgin with Eve, stated clearly and incisively that she was exempted from the fourfold curse that had been laid upon Eve.(30)

31. Following the footsteps of his distinguished teacher, the Angelic Doctor, despite the fact that he never dealt directly with this question, nevertheless, whenever he touched upon it, always held together with the Catholic Church, that Mary's body had been assumed into heaven along with her soul.(31)

32. Along with many others, the Seraphic Doctor held the same views. He considered it as entirely certain that, as God had preserved the most holy Virgin Mary from the violation of her virginal purity and integrity in conceiving and in childbirth, he would never have permitted her body to have been resolved into dust and ashes.(32) Explaining these words of Sacred Scripture: "Who is this that comes up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?"(33) and applying them in a kind of accommodated sense to the Blessed Virgin, he reasons thus: "From this we can see that she is there bodily...her blessedness would not have been complete unless she were there as a person. The soul is not a person, but the soul, joined to the body, is a person. It is manifest that she is there in soul and in body. Otherwise she would not possess her complete beatitude.(34)

33. In the fifteenth century, during a later period of scholastic theology, St. Bernardine of Siena collected and diligently evaluated all that the medieval theologians had said and taught on this question. He was not content with setting down the principal considerations which these writers of an earlier day had already expressed, but he added others of his own. The likeness between God's Mother and her divine Son, in the way of the nobility and dignity of body and of soul - a likeness that forbids us to think of the heavenly Queen as being separated from the heavenly King - makes it entirely imperative that Mary "should be only where Christ is."(35) Moreover, it is reasonable and fitting that not only the soul and body of a man, but also the soul and body of a woman should have obtained heavenly glory. Finally, since the Church has never looked for the bodily relics of the Blessed Virgin nor proposed them for the veneration of the people, we have a proof on the order of a sensible experience.(36)

34. The above-mentioned teachings of the holy Fathers and of the Doctors have been in common use during more recent times. Gathering together the testimonies of the Christians of earlier days, St. Robert Bellarmine exclaimed: "And who, I ask, could believe that the ark of holiness, the dwelling place of the Word of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, could be reduced to ruin? My soul is filled with horror at the thought that this virginal flesh which had begotten God, had brought him into the world, had nourished and carried him, could have been turned into ashes or given over to be food for worms."(37)

35. In like manner St. Francis de Sales, after asserting that it is wrong to doubt that Jesus Christ has himself observed, in the most perfect way, the divine commandment by which children are ordered to honor their parents, asks this question: "What son would not bring his mother back to life and would not bring her into paradise after her death if he could?"(38) And St. Alphonsus writes that "Jesus did not wish to have the body of Mary corrupted after death, since it would have redounded to his own dishonor to have her virginal flesh, from which he himself had assumed flesh, reduced to dust."(39)

36. Once the mystery which is commemorated in this feast had been placed in its proper light, there were not lacking teachers who, instead of dealing with the theological reasonings that show why it is fitting and right to believe the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven, chose to focus their mind and attention on the faith of the Church itself, which is the Mystical Body of Christ without stain or wrinkle(40) and is called by the Apostle "the pillar and ground of truth."(41) Relying on this common faith, they considered the teaching opposed to the doctrine of our Lady's Assumption as temerarious, if not heretical. Thus, like not a few others, St. Peter Canisius, after he had declared that the very word "assumption" signifies the glorification, not only of the soul but also of the body, and that the Church has venerated and has solemnly celebrated this mystery of Mary's Assumption for many centuries, adds these words of warning: "This teaching has already been accepted for some centuries, it has been held as certain in the minds of the pious people, and it has been taught to the entire Church in such a way that those who deny that Mary's body has been assumed into heaven are not to be listened to patiently but are everywhere to be denounced as over-contentious or rash men, and as imbued with a spirit that is heretical rather than Catholic."(42)

37. At the same time the great Suarez was professing in the field of mariology the norm that "keeping in mind the standards of propriety, and when there is no contradiction or repugnance on the part of Scripture, the mysteries of grace which God has wrought in the Virgin must be measured, not by the ordinary laws, but by the divine omnipotence."(43) Supported by the common faith of the entire Church on the subject of the mystery of the Assumption, he could conclude that this mystery was to be believed with the same firmness of assent as that given to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Thus he already held that such truths could be defined.

38. All these proofs and considerations of the holy Fathers and the theologians are based upon the Sacred Writings as their ultimate foundation. These set the loving Mother of God as it were before our very eyes as most intimately joined to her divine Son and as always sharing his lot. Consequently it seems impossible to think of her, the one who conceived Christ, brought him forth, nursed him with her milk, held him in her arms, and clasped him to her breast, as being apart from him in body, even though not in soul, after this earthly life. Since our Redeemer is the Son of Mary, he could not do otherwise, as the perfect observer of God's law, than to honor, not only his eternal Father, but also his most beloved Mother. And, since it was within his power to grant her this great honor, to preserve her from the corruption of the tomb, we must believe that he really acted in this way.

39. We must remember especially that, since the second century, the Virgin Mary has been designated by the holy Fathers as the new Eve, who, although subject to the new Adam, is most intimately associated with him in that struggle against the infernal foe which, as foretold in the protoevangelium,(44) would finally result in that most complete victory over the sin and death which are always mentioned together in the writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles.(45) Consequently, just as the glorious resurrection of Christ was an essential part and the final sign of this victory, so that struggle which was common to the Blessed Virgin and her divine Son should be brought to a close by the glorification of her virginal body, for the same Apostle says: "When this mortal thing hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory."(46)

40. Hence the revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination,(47) immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences, finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages.(48)

41. Since the universal Church, within which dwells the Spirit of Truth who infallibly directs it toward an ever more perfect knowledge of the revealed truths, has expressed its own belief many times over the course of the centuries, and since the bishops of the entire world are almost unanimously petitioning that the truth of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven should be defined as a dogma of divine and Catholic faith--this truth which is based on the Sacred Writings, which is thoroughly rooted in the minds of the faithful, which has been approved in ecclesiastical worship from the most remote times, which is completely in harmony with the other revealed truths, and which has been expounded and explained magnificently in the work, the science, and the wisdom of the theologians - we believe that the moment appointed in the plan of divine providence for the solemn proclamation of this outstanding privilege of the Virgin Mary has already arrived.

42. We, who have placed our pontificate under the special patronage of the most holy Virgin, to whom we have had recourse so often in times of grave trouble, we who have consecrated the entire human race to her Immaculate Heart in public ceremonies, and who have time and time again experienced her powerful protection, are confident that this solemn proclamation and definition of the Assumption will contribute in no small way to the advantage of human society, since it redounds to the glory of the Most Blessed Trinity, to which the Blessed Mother of God is bound by such singular bonds. It is to be hoped that all the faithful will be stirred up to a stronger piety toward their heavenly Mother, and that the souls of all those who glory in the Christian name may be moved by the desire of sharing in the unity of Jesus Christ's Mystical Body and of increasing their love for her who shows her motherly heart to all the members of this august body. And so we may hope that those who meditate upon the glorious example Mary offers us may be more and more convinced of the value of a human life entirely devoted to carrying out the heavenly Father's will and to bringing good to others. Thus, while the illusory teachings of materialism and the corruption of morals that follows from these teachings threaten to extinguish the light of virtue and to ruin the lives of men by exciting discord among them, in this magnificent way all may see clearly to what a lofty goal our bodies and souls are destined. Finally it is our hope that belief in Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven will make our belief in our own resurrection stronger and render it more effective.

43. We rejoice greatly that this solemn event falls, according to the design of God's providence, during this Holy Year, so that we are able, while the great Jubilee is being observed, to adorn the brow of God's Virgin Mother with this brilliant gem, and to leave a monument more enduring than bronze of our own most fervent love for the Mother of God.

44. For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be 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.

45. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.

46. In order that this, our definition of the bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven may be brought to the attention of the universal Church, we desire that this, our Apostolic Letter, should stand for perpetual remembrance, commanding that written copies of it, or even printed copies, signed by the hand of any public notary and bearing the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, should be accorded by all men the same reception they would give to this present letter, were it tendered or shown.

47. It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

48. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the great Jubilee, 1950, on the first day of the month of November, on the Feast of All Saints, in the twelfth year of our pontificate.

 

PIUS XII

 

 

NOTES

1. Rom 8:28.

2. Gal 4:4.

3. Cf. Hentrich-Von Moos, Petitiones de Assumptione Corporea B. Virginis Mariae in Caelum Definienda ad S. Sedem Delatae, 2 volumes (Vatican Polyglot Press, 1942).

4. Acts 20:28.

5. The Bull Ineffabilis Deus, in the Acta Pii IX, pars 1, Vol. 1, p. 615.

6. The Vatican Council, Constitution Dei filius, c. 4.

7. Jn 14:26.

8. Vatican Council, Constitution Pastor Aeternus, c. 4.

9. Ibid., Dei Filius, c. 3.

10. The encyclical Mediator Dei (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, XXXIX, 541).

11. Sacramentarium Gregorianum.

12. Menaei Totius Anni.

13. Lk 22:32.

14. Liber Pontificalis.

15. Ibid.

16. Responsa Nicolai Papae I ad Consulta Bulgarorum.

17. St. John Damascene, Encomium in Dormitionem Dei Genetricis Semperque Virginis Mariae, Hom. II, n. 14; cf. also ibid, n. 3.

18. St. Germanus of Constantinople, In Sanctae Dei Genetricis Dormitionem, Sermo I.

19. The Encomium in Dormitionem Sanctissimae Dominae Nostrate Deiparae Semperque Virginis Mariae, attributed to St. Modestus of Jerusalem, n. 14.

20. Cf. St. John Damascene, op. cit., Hom. II, n. 11; and also the Encomium attributed to St. Modestus.

21. Ps 131:8.

22. Ps 44:10-14ff.

23. Song 3:6; cf. also 4:8; 6:9.

24. Rv 12:1ff.

25. Lk 1:28.

26. Amadeus of Lausanne, De Beatae Virginis Obitu, Assumptione in Caelum Exaltatione ad Filii Dexteram.

27. Is 61:13.

28. St. Anthony of Padua, Sermones Dominicales et in Solemnitatibus, In Assumptione S. Mariae Virginis Sermo.

29. St. Albert the Great, Mariale, q. 132.

30. St. Albert the Great, Sermones de Sanctis, Sermo XV in Annuntiatione B. Mariae; cf. also Mariale, q. 132.

31. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., I, lla; q. 27, a. 1; q. 83, a. 5, ad 8; Expositio Salutationis Angelicae; In Symb. Apostolorum Expositio, a. S; In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 1, a. 3, sol. 3; d. 43, q. 1, a. 3, sol. 1, 2.

32. St. Bonaventure, De Nativitate B. Mariae Virginis, Sermo V.

33. Song 8:5.

34. St. Bonaventure, De Assumptione B. Mariae Virginis, Sermo 1.

35. St. Bernardine of Siena, In Assumptione B. Mariae Virginis, Sermo 11.

36. Ibid.

37. St. Robert Bellarmine, Conciones Habitae Lovanii, n. 40, De Assumption B. Mariae Virginis.

38. Oeuvres de St. Francois De Sales, sermon for the Feast of the Assumption.

39. St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary, Part 2, d. 1.

40. Eph 5:27.

41. I Tim 3:15.

42. St. Peter Canisius, De Maria Virgine.

43. Suarez, In Tertiam Partem D. Thomae, q. 27, a. 2, disp. 3, sec. 5, n. 31.

44. Gen 3:15.

45. Rom 5-6; I Cor. 15:21-26, 54-57.

46. I Cor 15:54.

47. The Bull Ineffabilis Deus, loc. cit., p. 599.

48. I Tim 1:17.

Tuesday 28 June 2022

Tuesday's Serial: “The Blind Spot” by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint (in English) - XI

XXIX. — THE OCCULT WORLD

“In telling what I know,” began Watson, “I shall use a bit of a preface. It's necessary, in a way, if you are to understand me; besides, it will give you the advantage of looking into the Blind Spot with the clear eyes of reason. I intend to tell all, to omit nothing. My purpose in doing this is that, in case we should fail tonight, you will be able to give my account to the world.”

It was a strange introduction. His listeners exchanged thoughtful glances. But they all affirmed, and Sir Henry hitched his chair almost impatiently.

“All right, Mr. Watson. Please proceed.”

“To begin with,” said Watson, “I assume that you all know of Dr. Holcomb's announcement concerning the Blind Spot. You remember that he promised to solve the occult; how he foretold that he would prove it not by immaterial but by the very material means; that he would produce the fact and the substance.

“Now, the professor had promised to deliver something far greater than he had thought it to be. At the same time, what he knew of the Blind Spot was part conjecture and part fact. Like his forebears and contemporaries, he looked upon man as the real being.

“But it's a question, now, as to which is reality and which is not. There is not a branch of philosophy that looks upon the question in that light. Bishop Berkeley came near and he has been followed by others; but they all have been deceived by their own sophistry. However, except for the grossest materialists, all thinkers take cognizance of a hereafter.

“No one dreamed of a Blind Spot and what it may lead to, what it might contain. We are five-sensed; we interpret the universe by the measure of five yardsticks. Yet, the Blind Spot takes even those away; the more we know, it seems, the less certain we are of ourselves. As I said to Mme. Le Fabre, it is a difficult question to determine, after all, just who are the ghosts. At any rate, I KNOW”—and he paused for effect—“I know that there are uncounted millions who look upon us and our workings as entirely supernatural!

“Remember that what I have to tell you is just as real as your own lives have been since babyhood.

“It was slightly over a year ago that my last night on the earth arrived.

“I had gone out for the evening, in the forlorn hope of meeting a friend, of having some slight taste of pleasure before the end came.

“For several days I had been labouring under a sort of premonition, knowing that my life was slowly seeping away and that my vitality was slipping, bit by bit, to what I thought must be death. Had I then known what I know now, I could have saved myself. But if I had done it, if I had saved myself, we would never have found Dr. Holcomb.

“Perhaps it was the same fate that led me to Harry, that night. I don't know. Nevertheless, if there is any truth in what I have learned on the other side of the Blind Spot, it would seem that there is something higher than mere fate. I had never believed in luck; but when everything works out to a fraction of a breath, one ceases to be sceptical on the question of destiny and chance. I say, everything that happened that night was FORCED from the other side. In short, my giving that ring to Harry was simply a link in the chain of circumstances. It just had to be; the PROPHECY would not have had it otherwise.”

Without stopping to explain what he meant by the word “prophecy,” Watson went on:

“That's what makes it puzzling. I have never been able to understand how every bit has dovetailed with such exactness. We—you and I—are certainly not supernatural; and yet, on the other side of the Spot, the proof is overwhelmingly convincing.

“I was very weak that night. So weak that it is difficult for me to remember. The last I recollect was my going to the back of the house; to the kitchen, I think. I had a light in my hands. The boys were in the front room, waiting. One of them had opened a door some yards away from where I stood.

“Coming as it did, on the instant, it is difficult to describe. But I knew it instinctively for what it was: the dot of blue on the ceiling, and the string of light. Then, a sensation of falling, like dropping into space itself. It is hard to describe the horrifying terror of plunging head on from an immense height to a plain at a vastly lower level.

“And that's all that I remember—from this side.”

 

[NOTE.—In justice to Mr. Watson, the present writers have thought it best at this stage to transpose the story from the first to the third person. Any narrative, unless it is negative in its material, is hard to give in the first person; for where the narrator has played an active, positive part, he must either curb himself or fall under the slur of braggadocio. Yet, the world wants the details exactly as they happened; hence the transposition. EDITORS.]

 

Watson opened his eyes.

The first thing was light and a sense of great pain. There was a pressure at the back of the eyeballs, a poignant sensation not unlike a knife-thrust; that, and a sudden fear of madness, of drivelling helplessness.

The abrupt return of consciousness in such a condition is not easy to imagine. After all he had gone through, this strange sequel must have been terribly puzzling to him. He was a man of good education, well versed in psychology; in the first rush of consciousness he tried, as best he could, to weigh himself up in the balance of aberration. And it was this very fact that gave him his reassurance; for it told him that he could think, could reason, could count on a mind in full function.

But he could not see. The pain in his eyeballs was blinding. There was nothing he could distinguish; everything was woven together, a mere blaze of wonderful, iridescent, blazing coloration.

But if he could not see, he could feel. The pain was excruciating. He closed his eyes and fell to thinking, curiously enough, that the experience was similar to what he had gone through when upon learning to swim, he had first opened his eyes under the water. It had been under a blazing sun. The pain and the colour—it was much the same, only intensified.

Then he knew that he was very tired. The mere effort of that one thought had cost him vitality. He dropped back into unconsciousness, such as was more insensibility than slumber. He had strange dreams, of people walking, of women, and of many voices. It was blurred and indistinct, yet somehow not unreal. Then, after an unguessable length of time—he awoke.

He was much stronger. The lapse may have been very long; he could not know. But the pain in his eyes was gone; and he ventured to open the lids again in the face of the light that had been so baffling. This time he could see; not distinctly, but still enough to assure him of reality. By closing his eyes at intervals he was able to rest them and to accustom them gradually to the new degree of light. And after a bit he could see plainly.

He was on a cot, and in a room almost totally different from any that he had ever seen before. The colour of the walls, even, was dissimilar; likewise the ceiling. It was white, in a way, and yet unlike it; neither did it resemble any of the various tints; to give it a name that he afterward learned—alna—implies but little. It was utterly new to him.

Apparently he was alone. The room was not large; about the size of an ordinary bedroom. And after the first novelty of the unplaceable colour had worn off he began to take stock of his own person.

First, he was covered by the finest of bed clothing, thick but exceedingly light. There was no counterpane, but two blankets and two sheets; and none of them corresponded to any colour or material he had ever known. He only knew that their tints were light rather than dark.

Next, he moved his hands out from under the coverings, and held them up before his eyes. He was immensely puzzled. He naturally expected to see the worn, emaciated hands which had been his on that dramatic night; but the ones before him were plump, normal, of a healthy pink. The wrists likewise were in perfect condition, also his arms. He could not account for this sudden return to health, of the vigour he had known before he began to wear the ring. He lay back pondering.

Presently he fell to examining his clothes. There were two garments made of a silk-like textile, rather heavy as to weight, but exceedingly soft as to touch. They were slightly darker than the bed clothing. In a way they were much like pyjamas, except that both were designed to be merely slipped into place, without buttons or draw-strings. That is, they were tailored to fit snugly over the shoulders and waist, while loose enough elsewhere.

Then he noticed the walls of the room. They were after a simple, symmetrical style; coved—to use an architectural expression—or curved, where the corner would come with a radius much larger than common, amounting to four or five feet; so that a person of ordinary height could not stand close to the wall without stooping. Where the coved portion flowed into the perpendicular of the wall there was a broad moulding, like a plate rail, which acted as a support for the hanging pictures.

Watson counted four of these pictures. Instinctively he felt that they might give him a valuable clue as to his whereabouts. For, while his mind had cleared enough for him to feel sure that he had truly come through the Spot, he knew nothing more. Where was he? What would the pictures tell?

The first was directly before his eyes. In size perhaps two by three feet, with its greater length horizontal, it was more of a landscape than a portrait. And Watson's eagerness for the subject itself made him forget to note whether the work was mechanically or manually executed.

For it revealed a girl—about ten or twelve—very slightly draped, enjoying a wild romp with a most extraordinary creature. It was this animal that made the picture amazing; there was no subtle significance in the scene—there was nothing remarkable about the technique. The whole interest, for Watson, was in the animal.

It was a deer; perfect and beautiful, but cast in a Lilliputian mould. It stood barely a foot high, the most delicate thing he had ever looked upon. Mature in every detail of its proportion, the dainty hoofs, the fragile legs, smooth-coated body, and small, wide-antlered head—a miniature eight-pointer—made such a vision as might come to the dreams of a hunter.

Chick rose up in bed, in order to examine it more closely. Immediately he fell back again slightly dizzy. He closed his eyes.

Shortly he began examining the other pictures. Two of these were simple flower studies. Watson scarcely knew which puzzled him most; the blossoms or their containers. For the vases were like large-sized loving cups, broad as to body, and provided with a handle on either side. Their colours were unfamiliar. As for the blossoms—in one study the blooms were a half-dozen in number, and more like Shasta daisies than anything else. But their colour was totally unlike, while they possessed wide, striped stamens that gave the flowers an identity all their own. In the other vase were several varieties, and every one absolutely unrecognisable.

On the opposite side of the room was something fairly familiar. At first glance it seemed a simple basket of kittens, done in black and white—something like crayon, and yet resembling sepia. Alongside the basket, however, was a spoon, one end resting on the edge of a saucer. And it was the size of the spoon that commanded Chick's attention; rather, the size of the kittens, any one of which could have curled up comfortably in the bowl of the spoon! Judging relatively, if it were an ordinary tablespoon, then the kittens were smaller than the smallest of mice.

Chick gave it up. Presently he began speculating about the time. He decided that, whatever the hour might be, it was still daylight. In one wall of the room was a large, oval window, of a material which may as well be called glass, frosted, so as to permit no view of what might lie outside. But it allowed plenty of light to enter.

Cut in the opposite wall was a doorway, hung with a curtain instead of a door. This curtain was a gauzy material, but its maroonlike shade completely hid all view of whatever lay beyond.

Chick waited and listened. Hitherto he had not heard a sound. There was not even that subtle, mixed hum from the distance that we are accustomed to associate with silence. He felt certain that he was inside the Blind Spot; but as to just where that locality might lie, he knew as little as before. He knew only that he in a building of some sort. Where, and what, was the building?

Just then he noticed a cord dangling from the ceiling. It came down to within six inches of his head. He gave it a pull.

Whereupon he heard a faint, musical jangling in the distance. He tried to analyse the sound. It was not bell-like; perhaps the word “tinkling” would serve better. Provisionally, Chick placed the key at middle D.

A moment later he heard steps outside the curtain. They were very soft and light and deliberate; and almost at the same instant a delicate white hand moved the curtain aside.

It was a woman. Chick lay back and wondered. Although not beautiful she was very good to look at, with large blue eyes of a deep tenderness and sympathy, even features, and a wonderful fold of rich brown hair held in place by a satiny net.

She started when she saw Chick's wide open eyes; then smiled, a motherly smile and compassionate. She was dressed in a manner at once becoming and odd, to one unaccustomed, in a gown that draped the entire figure, yet left the right arm and shoulder bare. Chick noticed that arm especially; it was white as marble, moulded full, and laced with fine blue veins. He had never seen an arm like that. Nor such a woman. She might have been forty.

She came over to the bed and placed a hand on Chick's forehead. Again she smiled, and nodded.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

Now this is a strange thing; Watson could not account for it. For, although she did not speak English, yet he could understand her quite well. At the moment it seemed perfectly obvious; afterward, the fact became amazing.

He answered in the same way, his thoughts directing his lips. And he found that as long as he made no conscious attempt to select the words for his thought, he could speak unhesitatingly.

“Where am I?”

She smiled indulgently, but did not answer.

“Is this the—Blind Spot?”

“The Blind Spot! I do not understand.”

“Who are you?”

“Your nurse. Perhaps,” soothingly, “you would like to talk to the Rhamda.”

“The Rhamda!”

“Yes. The Rhamda Geos.”

 

 

XXX. — THE PLUNGE

The woman left him. For a while Chick reflected upon what she had said. In full rush of returning vigour his mind was working clearly and with analytical exactness.

For the first time he noticed a heaviness in the air, overladen, pregnant. He became aware of a strange, undercurrent of life; of an exceedingly faint, insistent sound, pulse-like and rhythmical, like the breathing undertones of multitudes. He was a city man, and accustomed to the murmuring throbs of a metropolitan heart. But this was very different.

Presently, amid the strangeness, he could distinguish the tinkle of elfin bells, almost imperceptible, but musical. The whole air was laden with a subdued music, lined, as it were, with a golden vibrancy of tintinnabulary cadence—distant, subdued, hardly more than a whisper, yet part of the air itself.

It gave him the feeling that he was in a dream. In the realms of the subconscious he had heard just such sounds—exotic and unearthly—fleeting and evanescent.

The notion of dreams threw his mind into sudden alertness. In an instant he was thinking systematically, and in the definite realisation of his plight.

The woman had spoken of “the Rhamda.” True, she had added a qualifying “Geos,” but that did not matter. Whether Geos or Avec, it was still the Rhamda. By this time Watson was convinced that the word indicated some sort of title—whether doctor, or lord, or professor, was not important. What interested Chick was identity. If he could solve that he could get at the crux of the Blind Spot.

He thought quickly. Apparently, it was Rhamda Avec who had trapped Dr. Holcomb. Why? What had been the man's motive? Watson could not say. He only knew the ethics of the deed was shaded with the subtleness of villainy. That behind it all was a purpose, a directing force and intelligence that was inexorable and irresistible.

One other thing he knew; the Rhamda Avec came out of the region in which he, Watson, now found himself. Rather, he could have come from nowhere else. And Watson could feel certain that somewhere, somehow, he would find Dr. Holcomb.

In that moment Watson determined upon his future course of action. He decided to state nothing, intimate nothing, either by word or deed, that might in any manner incriminate or endanger the professor. It was for him to learn everything possible and to do all he could to gain his points, without giving a particle of information in return. He must play a lone hand and a cautious one—until he found Dr. Holcomb.

The fact of his position didn't appall him. Somehow, it had just the opposite effect. Perhaps it was because his strength had come back, and had brought with it the buoyancy that is natural to health. He could sense the vitality that surrounded him, poised, potential, waiting only the proper attitude on his part to become an active force. Something tremendous had happened to him, to make him feel like that. He was ready for anything.

Five minutes passed. Watson was alert and ready when the woman returned, together with a companion. She smiled kindly, and announced:

“The Rhamda Geos.”

At first Chick was startled. There was a resemblance to Rhamda Avec that ran almost to counterpart. The same refinement and elegance, the fleeting suggestion of youth, the evident age mingled with the same athletic ease and grace of carriage. Only he was somewhat shorter. The eyes were almost identical, with the peculiar quality of the iris and pupil that suggested, somehow, a culture inherited out of the centuries. He was dressed in a black robe, such as would befit a scholar.

He smiled, and held out a hand. Watson noted the firm clasp, and the cold thrill of magnetism.

“You wish to speak with me?”

The voice was soft and modulated, resonant, of a tone as rich as bronze.

“Yes. Where am I—sir?”

“You do not know?”

It seemed to Watson that there was real astonishment in the man's eyes. As yet it had not come to Chick that he himself might be just as much a mystery as the other. The only question in his mind at the moment was locality.

“Is this the Blind Spot?”

“The Blind Spot!”—with the same lack of comprehension that the woman had shown. “I do not understand you.”

“Well, how did I get here?”

“Oh, as to that, you were found in the Temple of the Leaf. You were lying unconscious on the floor.”

“A temple! How did I get there, sir? Do you know?”

“We only know that a moment before there was nothing; next instant—you.”

Watson thought. There was a subconscious sound that still lingered in his memory; a sound full-toned, flooding, enveloping. Was there any connection—

“'The Temple of the Leaf,' you call it, sir. I seem to remember having heard a bell. Is there such a thing in that temple?”

The Rhamda Geos smiled, his eyes brightening. “It is sometimes called the Temple of the Bell.”

“Ah!” A pause, and Watson asked, “Where is this temple? And is this room a part of the building?”

“No. You are in the Sar-Amenive Hospital, an institution of the Rhamdas.”

The Rhamdas! So there were several of them. A sort of society, perhaps.

“In San Francisco?”

“No. San Francisco! Again I fail to understand. This locality is known as the Mahovisal.”

“The Mahovisal!” Watson thought in silence for a moment. He noted the extremely keen interest of the Rhamda, the ultra-intelligent flicker of the eyes, the light of query and critical analysis. “You call this the Mahovisal, sir? What is it: town, world or institution?”

The other smiled again. The lines about his sensitive mouth were susceptible of various interpretations: emotion, or condescension, or the satisfying feeling that comes from the simple vindication of some inner conviction. His whole manner was that of interest and respectful wonder.

“You have never heard of the Mahovisal? Never?”

“Not until this minute,” answered Watson.

“You have no knowledge of anything before? Do you know WHO YOU ARE?”

“I”—Watson hesitated, wondering whether he had best withhold this information. He decided to chance the truth. “My name is Chick Watson. I am—an American.”

“An American?”

The Rhamda pronounced the word with a roll of the “r” that sounded more like the Chinese “Mellican” than anything else. It was evident that the sounds were totally unfamiliar to him. And his manner was a bit indefinite, doubtful, yet weighted with care, as he slowly repeated the question:

“An American? Once more I don't understand. I have never heard the word, my dear sir. You are neither D'Hartian nor Kospian; although there are some—materialists for the most part—who contend that you are just as any one else. That is—a man.”

“Perhaps I am,” returned Watson, utterly confounded. He did not know what to say. He had never heard of a Kospian or a D'Hartian, nor of the Mahovisal. It made things difficult; he couldn't get started. Most of all, he wanted information; and, instead, he was being questioned. The best he could do was to equivocate.

As for the Rhamda, he frowned. Apparently his eager interest had been dashed with disappointment. But only slightly, as Watson could see; the man was of such culture and intellect as to have perfect control over his emotions. In his balance and poise he was very like Avec, and he had the same pleasing manner.

“My dear sir,” he began, “if you are really a man, then you can tell me something of great importance.”

“I” Chick retorted, “can tell you nothing until you first let me know just where I stand!”

Certainly there was a lack of common ground. Until one of them supplied it, there could be no headway. Watson realised that his whole future might revolve about the axis of his next words.

The Rhamda thought a moment, dubiously, like one who has had a pet theory damaged, though not shattered. Suddenly he spoke to the woman.

“Open the portal,” said he.

She stepped to the oval window, touched a latch, and swung the pane horizontally upon two pivots. Immediately the room was flooded with a strange effulgence, amber-like, soft and mellow, as real sunshine.

But it was NOT real sunshine!

The window was set in a rather thick wall, beyond which Watson could see a royal sapphiric sky, flecked with white and purple and amethyst-threaded clouds poised above a great amber sleeping sun.

It was the sun that challenged attention. It was so mild, and yet so utterly beyond what might be expected. In diameter it would have made six of the one Watson had known; in the blue distance, touching the rim of the horizon, it looked exactly like a huge golden plate set edgewise on the end of the earth.

And—he could look straight at it without blinking!

His thoughts ran back to the first account of the Rhamda. The man had looked straight at the sun and had been blinded. This accounted for it! The man had been accustomed to this huge, soft-glowing beauty. An amberous sun, deep yellow, sleeping; could it be, after all, dreamland?

But there were other things: the myriad tintinnabulations of these microscopic bells, never ceasing, musically throbbing; and now, the exotic delight of the softest of perfumes, an air barely tinted with violet and rose, and the breath of woodland wild flowers. He could not comprehend it. He looked at the purple clouds above the lotus sun, hardly believing, and deeply in doubt.

A great white bird dived suddenly out of the heavens and flew into the focus of his vision. In all the tales of his boyhood, of large and beautiful rocs and other birds, he had come across nothing like this. From the perspective it must have measured a full three hundred feet from tip to tip; it was shaped like a swan and flew like an eagle, with magnificent, lazy sweeps of the wings; while its plumage was as white as the snow, new fallen on the mountains. And right behind it, in pursuit, hurtled a huge black thing, fully as large and just as swift; a tremendous black crow, so black that its sides gave off a greenish shimmer.

Just then the woman closed the window. It was as well; Watson was only human, and he could hide his curiosity just so long and no longer. He turned to the Rhamda.

The man nodded. “I thought so,” said he with satisfaction, as one might who has proven a pet and previous theory.

Watson tried from another angle.

“Just who do you think I am, sir?”

The other smiled as before. “It is not what I may think,” he replied: “but what I know. You are the proof that was promised us by the great Rhamda Avec. You are—THE FACT AND THE SUBSTANCE!”

He waited for Watson's answer. Stupefaction delayed it. After a moment the Rhamda continued:

“Is it not so? Am I not right? You are surely out of the occult, my dear sir. You are a spirit!”

It took Chick wholly by surprise. He had been ready to deal with anything—but this. It was unreal, weird, impossible. And yet, why not? The professor had set out to remove forever the screen that had hitherto shrouded the shadow: but what had he revealed? What had the Spot disclosed? Unreality or REALITY? Which is which?

In the inspiration of the moment, Chick saw that he had reached the crossroads of the occult. There was no time to think; there was time only for a plunge. And, like all strong men, Watson chose the deeper water.

He turned to the Rhamda Geos.

“Yes,” said he quietly. “I—am a spirit.”

 

 

XXXI. — UP FOR BREATH

Rhamda Geos, instead of showing the concern and uneasiness that most men would show in the presence of an avowed ghost, evinced nothing but a deep and reverent happiness. He took Watson's hand almost shyly. And while his manner was not effusive, it had the warmth that comes from the heart of a scholar.

“As a Rhamda,” he declared, “I must commend myself for being the first to speak to you. And I must congratulate you, my dear sir, on having fallen, not into the hands of Bar Senestro, but into those of my own kind. It is a proof of the prophecy, and a vindication of the wisdom of the Ten Thousand.

“I bid you welcome to the Thomahlia, and I offer you my services, as guide and sponsor.”

Chick did not reply at once. The chance he had taken was one of those rare decisions that come to genius; the whole balance of his fate might swing upon his sudden impulse. Not that he had any compunction; but he felt that it tied him down. It restricted him. Certainly almost any role would be easier than that of a spirit.

He didn't feel like a ghost. He wondered just how a ghost would act, anyhow. What was more, he could not understand such a queer assumption on the Rhamda's part. Why had he seemed to WANT Chick a ghost? Watson was natural, human, embodied, just like the Rhamda. This was scarcely his idea of a phantom's life. Most certainly, the two of them were men, nothing else; if one was a wraith, so was the other. But—how to account for it?

Again he thought of Rhamda Avec. The words of Geos, “The Fact and the Substance,” had been exactly synonymous with what had been said of Avec by Dr. Holcomb, “The proof of the occult.”

Was it indeed possible that these two great ones, from opposite poles, had actually torn away the veil of the shadow? And was this the place where he, Watson, must pose as a spirit, if he were to be accepted as genuine?

The thought was a shock. He must play the same part here that the Rhamda had played on the other side of the Spot; but he would have to do it without the guiding wisdom of Avec. Besides, there was something sinister in the unknown force that had engulfed so strong a mind as the professor's; for while Watson's fate had been of his own seeking, that of the doctor smacked too much of treachery.

He turned to the Rhamda Geos with a new question:

“This Rhamda Avec—was he a man like yourself?”

The other brightened again, and asked in return:

“Then you have seen him!”

“I—I do not know,” answered Watson, caught off his guard. “But the name is familiar. I don't remember well. My mind is vague and confused. I recall a world, a wonderful world it was from which I came, and a great many people. But I can't place myself; I hardly—let me see—”

The other nodded sympathetic approval.

“I understand. Don't exert yourself. It is hardly to be expected that one forced out of the occult could come among us with his faculties unimpaired. We have had many communications with your world, and have always been frustrated by this one gulf which may not be crossed. When real thought gets across the border, it is often indefinite, sometimes mere drivel. Such answers as come from the void are usually disappointing, no matter how expert our mediums may be in communicating with the dead.”

“The dead! Did you say—the dead?”

“Certainly; the dead. Are you not of the dead?”

Watson shook his head emphatically.

“Absolutely not! Not where I came from. We are all very much alive!”

The other watched him curiously, his great eyes glowing with enthusiasm; the enthusiasm of the born seeker of the truth.

“You don't mean,” he asked, “that you have the same passions that we have here in life?”

“I mean,” said Watson, “that we hate, love, swear; we are good and we are evil; and we play games and go fishing.”

Geos rubbed his hands in a dignified sort of glee. What had been said coincided, apparently, with another of his pet theories.

“It is splendid,” he exulted, “splendid! And just in line with my thesis. You shall tell it before the Council of the Rhamdas. It will be the greatest day since the speaking of the Jarados!”

Watson wondered just who this Jarados might be; but for the moment he went back to the previous question.

“This Rhamda Avec: you were about to tell me about him. Let me have as much as I can understand, sir.”

“Ah, yes! The great Rhamda Avec. Perhaps you may recall him when your mind clears a little more. My dear sir, he is, or was, the chief of the Rhamdas of all the Thomahlia.”

“What is the 'Thomahlia'?”

“The Thomahlia! Why, it is called the world; our name for the world. It comprises, physically, land, water and air; politically, it embraces D'Hartia, Kospia and a few minor nations.”

“Who are the Rhamdas?”

“They are the heads of—of the Thomahlia; not the nominal nor political nor religious heads—they are neither judicial, executive nor legislative; but the real heads, still above. They might be called the supreme college of wisdom, of science and of research. Also, they are the keepers of the bell and its temple, and the interpreters of the Prophecy of the Jarados.”

“I see. You are a sort of priesthood.”

“No. The priesthood is below us. The priests take what orders we choose to give, and are purely—”

“Superstitious?”

The Rhamda's eyes snapped, just a trifle.

“Not at all, my dear sir! They are good, sincere men. Only, not being intellectually adept enough to be admitted to the real secrets, the real knowledge, they give to all things a provisional explanation based upon a settled policy. Not being Rhamdas, they are simply not aware that everything has an exact and absolute explanation.”

“In other words,” put in Watson, “they are scientists; they have not lifted themselves up to the plane of inquisitive doubt.”

Still the Rhamda shook his head.

“Not quite that, either, my dear sir. Those below us are not ignorant; they are merely nearer to the level of the masses than we are. In fact, they are the people's rulers; these priests and other similar classes. But we, the Rhamdas, are the rulers of the rulers. We differ from them in that we have no material ends to subserve. Being at the top, with no motive save justice and advancement, our judgments are never questioned, and for the same reason, seldom passed.

“But we are far above the plane of doubt that you speak of; we passed out of it long ago. That is the first stage of true science; afterwards comes the higher levels where all things have a reason; ethics, inspiration, thought, emotion—”

“And—the judgment of the Jarados?”

Watson could not have told why he said it. It was impulse, and the impromptu suggestion of a half-thought. But the effect of his words upon the Rhamda and the nurse told him that, inadvertently, he had struck a keynote. Both started, especially the woman. Watson took note of this in particular, because of the ingrained acceptance of the feminine in matter of belief.

“What do you know?” was her eager interruption. “You have seen the Jarados?”

As for the Rhamda, he looked at Watson with shrewd, calculating eyes. But they were still filled with wonder.

“Can you tell us?” he asked. “Try and think!”

Chick knew that he had gained a point. He had been dealt a trump card; but he was too clever to play it at once. He was on his own responsibility and was carrying a load that required the finest equilibrium.

“I really do not know,” he said. “I—I must have time to think. Coming across the border that way you must give me time. You were telling me about the Rhamdas in general; now tell me about Avec in particular.”

Geos nodded as though he could understand the fog that beclouded Watson's mind.

“The Rhamda Avec is, or was, the wisest of them all; the head and the chief, and by far the most able. Few beside his own fellows knew it, however; another than he was the nominal head, and officiated for him whenever necessary. Avec had little social intercourse; he was a prodigious student.

“We are a body of learned men, you understand, and we stand at the peak of all that has been discovered through hundreds upon hundreds of centuries, so that at the present day we are the culmination of the combined effort and thought of man since the beginning of time. Each generation of Rhamdas must be greater than the one preceding. When I die and pass on to your world I must leave something new and worth-while to my successor; some thought, wisdom, or deed that may be of use to mankind. I cannot be a Rhamda else. We are a set of supreme priests, who serve man at the shrine of intelligence, not of dogma.

“Of course, we are not to be judged too highly. All research, when it steps forward must go haltingly; there are many paths into the unknown that look like the real one. Hence, we have among us various schools of thought, and each following a different trail.

“I myself am a spiritist. I believe that we can, and often have, communicated with your world at various times. There are others who do not grant it; there are Rhamdas who are inclined to lean more to the materialist's side of things, who rely entirely, when it comes to questions of this kind, upon their faith in the teachings of the Jarados. There are some, too, who believe in the value of speculation, and who contend that only through contemplation can man lift himself to the full fruits of realisation. At the head of us all—the Rhamda Avec!”

“What was his belief?”

“Let us say he believed ALL. He was eclectic. He held that we were all of us a bit right, and each of us a whole lot wrong. It was his contention, however, that there was not one thing that could not be proven; that the secret of life, while undoubtedly a secret in every sense of the word, is still very concrete, it could be proven!”

Watson nodded. He remembered hearing another man make just such a statement—Dr. Holcomb.

“For years he worked in private,” went on Geos. “We never knew just what he was doing; until, one day, he called us together and delivered his lecture.”

“His lecture?”

“Rather, his prophecy. For it was all that. Not that he spoke at great length; it was but a talk. He announced that he believed the time had come to prove the occult. That it could be done, and done only through concrete, material means; and that whatever existed, certainly could be demonstrated. He was going to pull aside the curtain that had hitherto cut off the shadow.

“'I am going to prove the occult,' he said. 'In three days I shall return with the fact and the substance. And then I propose to deliver my greatest lecture, my final thesis, in which my whole life shall come to a focus. I shall bring the proof for your eyes and ears, for your fingers to explore and be satisfied. You shall behold the living truth.”

“'And the subject of my lecture—the subject of my lecture will be The Spot of Life.'”

Saturday 25 June 2022

Good Reading: letter from Fr. Thomas R. D. Byles to his Brother William Byles (in English) - I

Sept 14, 1894

 

My Dear Winter:

 

I am staying on in Germany after taking departure of the others in the hopes of getting a tutorship here for a few months. I think it is w. doubtful if I shall succeed; if not I shall go home probably in a week or two. I have been staying here at a Benedictine Convent for the last week & have had a very pleasant time. I think this is the finest country I have seen. The Danube here flows through a valley and precipitous cliffs on each side, clothed halfway up in beech & fir, & the other half is perpendicular limestone rock. Just at Beuron the valley widens & forms an amphitheater round the Abbey. This Abbey has only been founded 30 years, but it has acquired a great reputation, especially for Art, & it has already several branches in different lands; one in England. You probably know that Willie began his Jesuit Novitiate last Saturday (Sept. 8). He started from home a fortnight ago, reaching London on the 2nd so as to have a few days there beforehand. His address for the next 2 yrs. will be Monroe House, Roehampton, London, S.W. The other left for home the following Sat. (Sept 1) & got to Stoke last Friday. They had a bad crossing & had to sleep in the Hall. I hope to enter some Religious Order early in next year, but I want to wait a little, partly because I have not yet found out which Order I am best fitted for, & partly because my doctor tells me that by next February, if I have not recurrence, I may consider myself quite cured of my fits, & till that is safe it would probably be difficult to find any Order willing to accept me. Hilda received your letter on the day they started for England, but unfortunately I had not time to learn what news it contained; I hope however to receive from home either the letter itself or the substance of the contents. I wish I could impart to you something of the bliss of knowing with certainty what God has revealed for our support & help. It is a happiness which grows more & more every day & which affords a truly marvelous & altogther supernatural support in all temptation, & against all evil. It is however beyond my power to impart this -- the most I can do is to pray God to give to all I love this wonderfully great Gift which I have received: and I trust you also pray continually that God will show you more of His Truth. It is the duty of everyone who does not possess a complete Revelation. And above all, avoid shallow judgments of Catholicism. Be scrupulously honest. Prereis (e.g.) no suff-t ground for saying (as to often said) that Catholicism was a good Religion for the Middle Ages, but a bad one now. Some circumstances have changed, but human nature has not changed to that extent. I remain ever,

Your Loving Brother,

Thomas Roussel

Friday 24 June 2022

Friday's Sung Word: "Não Me Deixam Comer" by Noel Rosa (in Portuguese)

 -Todos brincam, fazem farra, gastam o dinheiro. E eu quero gastar mas não posso. Ninguém vive sem comer. Eu, no entanto, quero comer mas não posso. Até os cachorros têm o direito de dormir. Eu quero dormir mas não posso.

Gosta de dança e da orgia
Ser fuzarqueira é o teu orgulho
Tocas vitrola noite e dia
E agora durma-se com este barulho

Quero dormir, não posso
Quero dormir, não posso
Eu tenho um troço que me aborrece
Já não janto nem almoço

Andas atrás da minha nota
Queres tomar o meu salário
E mesmo até no agiota
Tu já passaste o conto do vigário

Quero gastar, não posso
Quero gastar, não posso
Eu tenho um troço que me aborrece
Já não janto nem almoço

A cozinheira já não dorme
Pois a patroa só mastiga
A tua fome é tão enorme
Que tens a boca maior do que a barriga

Quero comer, não posso
Quero comer, não posso
Eu tenho um troço que me aborrece
Já não janto nem almoço

 

You can listen "Não Me Deixam Comer" sung by Pinto Filho here.