I suppose that, speculatively speaking, there would have been nothing absolutely repugnant in the idea of the body of the Holy Mother of God Our Lady' awaiting the Resurrection of all the Just in a state of incorruption, separate from her soul, until the final Day of Account.
The Adorable Body of Christ Himself remained m the sepulchre, temporarily untenanted by His Soul, from the time that It was placed there by Joseph of Arimathea until the first Easter morning. There can be nothing absolutely repugnant in that, which certainly befell the Body of Christ for part of three days, continuing even for long centuries. Still, the state of separation of the soul from the body which it was created to inhabit is necessarily abnormal, and though our Lord endured it for a time, St. Peter says that it was impossible for him " to be holden by it." Moreover, the Ascension of His Body was made in some way the condition of His giving gifts to men. Had, therefore, our Lady's body, like the bodies of the Saints, been allowed to rest on earth, the object of the veneration of Christians, we should, when making pilgrimages to her shrine, have felt a surprise which we never feel when venerating the shrines of the Apostles. For what seems quite natural in the case of St. Peter and St. Paul would have seemed strange indeed in the case of the immaculate Mother of God. However, all such theoretical speculations as to what might have been are purely academic, for we know that in fact it was not so. God did not leave the body of His Holy Mother after her death for any length of time upon the earth. Of this we are assured by the world-wide belief of the Faithful, supported by the approval of the Church; also by the fact that never at any period has there been a suggestion that any Relics of the body of Mary were to be found in any part of the world.
