After their betrothal was finalized, Mary and Joseph probably had little to no contact for up to a year as they awaited their wedding ceremony and the consummation of their marriage. Mary's house was the only one built of stone. Bartholomew was in Asia, east of the Red Sea. He was very slim and active, his face was long, narrow, and delicate, and on his bare head his long fair hair was parted and brushed back behind his ears. See n. 193, p. 167 . [193] I saw the summoning angel come to him. I saw Thomas come up to me like the others, but he did not come into the vision of Mary's death; he was far away and came too late. There were now low smooth white stones with many sides -- I think eight -- with a little depression in the center of the surface. It was shining; her face was radiant; her eyes were closed, and her arms, crossed on her breast. Mary responded with faithful obedience to God's plan, despite the personal . Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. They wound them tightly round the body from the ankles to below the breast, leaving the head, breast, hands, and feet free. Amongst the holy women living in the Christian settlement near Ephesus and visiting the Blessed Virgin in her house was the daughter of a sister of Anna, the prophetess of the Temple. As she grew older, her face became ever paler and more transparent. 3. After the Blessed Virgin's death I saw this Way of the Cross being visited by Christians, who threw themselves down and kissed the ground. Its interesting to note that the passage also marks the first time Jesus calls God His Heavenly Father.. Back then, it made sense for the grooms family to offer payment for a wife. The Gospel of Matthew tells us, "This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be . "According to the customs of her time and country, Mary, at her betrothal with Joseph, was between twelve and twelve and one-half years old. Luke 3:23 tells us, Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. This makes sense, given Jewish traditions prohibiting rabbinical teaching until age 30 (Numbers 4:3). The matter is also confused by the historical problems of the date of the birth of Christ and the date of the Crucifixion and Ascension, and cannot be decided with any certainty. It seems to be made of different woods, and the figure of Christ is white. As she received the Blessed Sacrament I saw a radiance pass into Mary, who sank back as though in ecstasy, and spoke no more. The Blessed Virgin lay still and as though near death in her little cell. To reach the Station of the Holy Sepulcher one went over this hill and came to the stone in a hollow. Annette Marie Griffin is an award-winning author and speaker who has managed and directed childrens and youth programs for more than 20 years. In the last days of her life I never saw her take any nourishment except now and then a spoonful of juice which her maidservant pressed from a bunch of yellow berries like grapes into a bowl near her couch. It is recited in the Breviary on the Octave-Day or during the Octave, and is in fact the simplest collection of popular legends about the Assumption. The Apostles already present, who were just going up to the altar, greeted him with grave solemnity, telling him in few words to go to the Blessed Virgin. Ordained priest in 1815, he became a canon of Bamberg in 1821. Mary, also called St. Mary or the Virgin Mary, (flourished beginning of the Christian era), the mother of Jesus, venerated in the Christian church since the apostolic age and a favourite subject in Western art, music, and literature. I also saw a cloth lying beside the cross, and had the impression that it was the one with which the Blessed Virgin had wiped the blood from all the wounds in Our Lord.s holy body after it was taken down from the cross. "Who Was Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus?" Learn Religions. She was very weak and pale, and seemed as though completely consumed with yearning. I saw that Peter, who was already stiff from age and his exertions, sat up and rested his hands on his knees as he listened to the angel. The Blessed Virgin could not see the altar from her bed, but during the Holy Sacrifice she sat upright on her couch in deep devotion. Thaddeus went first with a smoking censer. A woman was kneeling beside Mary's couch and every now and then held her upright. Soon after her arrival at her new home I saw her every day climbing part of the way up the hill behind her house to carry out this devotion. John carried a vessel with ointment, and Peter, dipping the finger of his right hand into it, anointed the breast, hands, and feet of the Blessed Virgin, praying as he did so. He did not give her a chalice. This is notably older than the average marriage age from 1950which was just 21 years old. RELATIVES AND FRIENDS OF THE HOLY FAMILY WHO ALSO LIVE IN EPHESUS. Her sleeping cell was opened on all sides, and she sat upright on her couch, shining white as if suffused with light. The women wrapped and veiled themselves and, sitting on the ground in the room in front of the house, they began to lament for the dead, kneeling and sitting in turns. Although Mary is mentioned at the wedding at Cana (John 2), there is no Biblical evidence that Joseph was there, nor was he present at any of Jesus other public appearances. Later Philip came with a companion from Egypt. The holy body was dressed in a new robe, open in front, and reverently lifted, by means of cloths passed under it, onto a table where the grave-clothes and swaddling-bands had been arranged for convenient use. The identity of Eremenzear is unknown, but AC 169 states (p. 168 ) that he joined James and Timon later and had been a disciple of Our Lord. Today I saw a number of women, among whom I remember a daughter of Veronica and the mother of John Mark, coming to prepare the body for burial. The next time we see Mary is in Luke 2:41-52, when Jesus was twelve years old and attending Passover at the temple for the first time, as was Jewish custom. (SB), [195] All the ancient legends describe the pure soul of Mary leaving her body. She was very thin, but I saw no wrinkles; there was no sign whatever in her of any withering or decay. It is worth here quoting the actual definition: "Immaculatam Deiparam semper Virginem Mariam, expleto terrestris vitae cursu, fuisse corpore et anima ad caelestem gloriam assumptam." I saw all, the farthest as well as the nearest, being summoned by visions to come to the Blessed Virgin. After Mary's death he went with some six others back to Jerusalem and suffered a martyr's death. These Stations were all in hollows like little round basins. On their arrival at Jerusalem in the dusk of the evening, before they went into the city, I saw them visiting the Mount of Olives, Calvary, the Holy Sepulcher, and all the holy places outside Jerusalem. In the last weeks before she died I sometimes saw her, weak and aged, being led about the house by her maidservant. After His baptism, Scripture reveals that Jesus attended three annual Passover feasts (John 2, John 6, John 12). As he came in he girt up his long white ample garment in his girdle, then took off this girdle and put on another one, inscribed with letters, which he drew out from under his robe. I always saw them like this, but forgot to say so. Mary.s meditation on the different kinds of wood forming the cross were communicated to me, but alas I have forgotten this beautiful lesson. A young man was considered ready for marriage when he had mastered the skills needed to support a family. I now saw six of the Apostles already gathered here -- Peter, Andrew, John, Thaddeus, Bartholomew, and Matthias -- and also one of the seven deacons, Nicanor, who was always so helpful and anxious to be of service. 3 Surprising Reasons to Be Like Doubting Thomas. He was the young man of Naim who became a disciple and received the name of Martial in baptism. After the wedding, the groom would continue to live and work in his fathers home with his new bride, while the brides family lost a valuable and profitable member of their household. [190] I saw him healing many kinds of illnesses by his prayers; sometimes he cured people who had long suffered from ulcers hidden under their dirty rags. The brides chastity was protected and treasured. I saw several women (five, I think) going into her room one after the other, and coming out again as though they were saying farewell to her. Afterwards I saw the Apostles and disciples once more standing round the Blessed Virgin's bed and praying. This is not properly written out; but I see them as separate figures because I do not understand big sums in Roman letters. Mary's Way of the Cross has twelve Stations. We do know Mary would have been a young virgin when she had Jesus. At that age, Mary rejoiced over the privilege to carry the Messiah into the sin-fallen world. (He always tried to do too much and so often arrived too late.) Hardly had the vision vanished when he got up, wrapped himself in his cloak, fastened his girdle, grasped his staff, and set forth. This church dates back to the 5th century. Mary did not live in Ephesus itself, but in the country near it where several women who were her close friends had settled. It had no particular ornamentation, and was more roughly carved than the crosses which come from the Holy Land nowadays. She herself chose a cave in the Mount of Olives, and the Apostles caused a beautiful sepulcher to be prepared here by the hands of a Christian stonemason. Neither of them were in a town, but were taking their rest in public shelters such as are found by the roadside in these hot countries. In front of the cave there was a little garden with a wooden fence round it, as there had been in front of Christ's sepulcher. [At another time Catherine Emmerich said that St. Andrew had also helped in this work.] The cave was not as spacious as Christ's and hardly high enough for a man to enter it upright. She came to Jerusalem from Ephesus once again, [185] eighteen months before her death, and I saw her again visiting the Holy Places with the Apostles at night, wrapped in a veil. On being asked, in the middle of a conversation on everyday matters, how old the Blessed Virgin was when she died, Catherine Emmerich suddenly . Great avenues lead up to the city, and the ground under the trees is covered with yellow fruit. [August 11 ^th, 1821:] Today I saw a ninth Apostle, Simon, arrive. The sides of this box were covered with carpets reaching down to the floor and were decorated with tassels and fringes. ET on EWTN: Holy Mass and Rosary on Tuesday, April 25, 2023 - The Feast of Saint Mark. Near here is a castle inhabited by a king who seems to have been deposed. I expect that the news of her death, burial-place, and assumption into heaven were permitted by God to be indefinite and only a matter of tradition in order that Christianity in its early days should not be in danger of heathen influences then so powerful. The Blessed Virgin might easily have been adored as a goddess. In front of the Blessed Virgin's bed stood a small, low, three-cornered stool, like the one on which the kings had laid their presents before her in the Cave of the Nativity. Peter, after he and the other Apostles had received Communion, brought the Blessed Virgin the Blessed Sacrament and administered extreme unction to her. The Blessed Virgin lived here alone, with a younger woman, her maidservant, who fetched what little food they needed. But here there are difficulties about other statements: from AC's remarks on p. 98 we can deduce that she was eighteen at the birth of Christ, though from p. 57 we gather she was fourteen when she left the Temple and was married. 42-44. (SB), [192] The martyrdom of James the Great is the only death of an Apostle narrated in the New Testament ( Acts 12.. 1), and the persecutor is named: Herod, i.e. The two angel-choirs in the clouds met beneath her soul and separated it from her holy body, which in the moment of separation sank back on the couch with arms crossed on the breast. In contrast with the other Apostles, this gave him a womanish, almost girlish appearance. for the birth of Christ, 30 A.D. for his death, and the marrying age of 13 years old for young Jewish women at the time. A short time before the Blessed Virgin's death, as she felt the approach of her reunion with her God, her Son, and her Redeemer, she prayed that there might be fulfilled what Jesus had promised to her in the house of Lazarus at Bethany on the day before His Ascension.