"Why is it Our Lady who appears? Why did Jesus himself or some canonised saint not appear in Lourdes (as in Rue du Bac, La Salette, Pontmain, Beauraing, Fatima, to mention only the last century and a half and events approved by the Church)? But it is because – according to theology, as meditated upon by mystics – according to the Catholic Creed, “the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed into heavenly glory 'in soul and body”. Thus, the words of the dogma of the Assumption, defined and proclaimed by Pius XII only in 1950 but believed, in its essence, since the time of the Fathers of the Church in both the East and the West (the feast of the “Dormition”, which has “in nuce” the Assumption of the Virgin Mother, is probably the oldest of the Marian feasts that unite the universal Church). In short, Mary, having carried in her womb the One who said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ (Jn 11:25), followed her Son in his eternal destiny before any other human creature; she is the one who preceded us all, already welcomed into eternity ‘in soul and body’. Therefore, if she appears to mortals, it is also to remind us that what she already is, we too will be. In short, she is the sign and pledge, in her very person, of that salvation we were talking about, which will give us true health: the vision of Mary's body already “saved” is a guarantee that everyone's body will be saved."