"Omitted in our kalendar": Cosin on why the Prayer Book does not observe the Assumption

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Omitted in our kalendar, because there had been so many fabulous and superstitious stories devised about it in the Roman Church, where they now observe this day with more festival solemnity than they do the Ascension of Christ Himself. But they have no certain ground for their feast; for, first, how long the blessed Virgin Mary lived, and at what time or place she died, no account can be given out of the holy Scriptures, which say nothing either concerning the time of her nativity, or the day and manner of her death. Nor is there, secondly, any mention made hereof in all the writings of the ancient fathers during the first five ages of the Christian Church. But in after times there rose up a generation of men, who, being not content with the former silence of Scripture and antiquity herein, fell to surmise and make many stories about it of their own heads, fancying to themselves rather what they would have bad done, than what was truly and really done in this matter ...

The truth is, that the story of her assumption, now so much celebrated and generally believed in the Roman Church, is grounded only upon uncertain fables, first devised by men that gave their minds to vanity and superstition; of which kind the world never wanted store ...

And for this consideration it was, that the Church of England did by public authority abrogate this feast of the blessed Virgin's Assumption, whose soul nevertheless we believe to be assumed in paradise, there expecting the resurrection of her body (which was the choicest vessel of God's grace that ever the world had among all His saints) for the consummation of her endless felicity.

John Cosin, 'On the Kalendar' in Notes on the Book of Common Prayer, Works, Volume V.

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laudable Practice

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