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42 42 ST. MARY public miracle provided wine for the occasion. The marriage was apparently that of a relation, as she seems to have had some authority in the household (St. John ii. 1-1 1 ). Soon after this, she and her sister and nephews heard that He was going about teaching and doing good and had no leisure so much as to eat, and in their anxiety for His health and safety they determined to remon- strate with Him. They oould not, for the crowds of people, gain access to Him. It was told Him that His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to see Him. He gave the answer that we know, St. Matt. xii. 4-6 ; St. Mark iii. 31 ; and St. Luke viii. 19. St. Mary is next met with at the time of the Crucifixion (St. John xix. 25, 20, 27), when the dying Saviour saw His mother and St. John standing by the Cross, and commended her to the care of the disciple '' whom He loved," ''and from that hour that disciple took her to his own homo." They are both named among those who, after the Lord's Ascension, continued at Jerusalem in prayer and supplication (Acts i. 14). It is probable that she spent the rest of her life there, although one account says that she accompanied St. John to Ephesus and died there in the year 48. Concerning her death, her burial and assumption into Paradise, the Syriao Apocrypha says that when the apostles dispersed to preach in all the world, Mary, still in great sorrow, was constant in prayer every hour at the tomb and at Golgotha ; and as those who had cruci- fied her Son and Lord hated her, they wished to kill her also, and sot people to watch for her with orders to stone her if she went there to pray. Therefore Mary prayed to her Son to take her out of the world, and when the spies tried to speak to her or touch her, they could not for they saw the angel of God talking to her. The Jews then begged her to depart from Jerusalem, so she went to her own house at Bethlehem, and the throo virgins who dwelt with her and who were daughters of the chief men of Jerusalem, went with her. She knew that she was soon to die and she wished to see her Son and all the Apostles be- fore she departed out of the world. St. John was going into church at Ephesus and was warned by the Spirit of Qod to go and see his adopted mother. He was conveyed to her house instantly in a cloud of light. St. Peter was brought from Bome, St. Paul from Tiberias, St. Matthew from Beyrout, St. Bartholomew from Armenia, St. Thaddieus from Lao- dicea, and St. James from the cave of Zion. Five of the Apostles were dead, but they were awakened and brought to Bethlehem, and she took leave of them and blessed them. They carried her on a litter to Jerusalem. One of the priests of the Jews tried to throw down the litter into the valley that she might be burnt, but an angel smote off his arms ; the merciful Mary, however, forgave him and bade St. Peter give him back his arms. Then came Eve, Hanna, Elisa- beth, the patriarchs and the angels. The Saviour took her soul and the Apostles carried her body to the valley of Jehoshaphat, St. John going first and carrying the palm branch which an angel had brought to her from heaven beS)re her death. They laid her in a new tomb and sat at the mouth of it as the Lord Jesus had commanded them. He then asked them what He should do, and they prayed Him to raise up the body of His mother and take it with Him to Heaven, and He did so. St. Thomas was in India, and when he was called was in the act of baptizing the king's nephew (see St. Miodonia). Therefore he did not arrive in time to see all the wonders that the others had seen. He begged them to tell him everything, and when they had done so, he said he must see the empty tomb, "For I am Thomas, and you know that unless I see, I cannot believe." They showed him the tomb ; the body of the blessed woman was not there, but instead (says the Portuguese tradition) the grave was quite full of roses. Then Thomas confessed that be had seen on his way to Jerusalem, the mother of the Saviour being carried to Heaven by angels, and that as he had not been able to come and stand with the others beside her deathbed, she had given him her girdle. Another legend is that she died and