THE MONTH OF AUGUST WAS FIRST CALLED ” SEXTILUS.”
In 8 BC, it was renamed after the Roman emperor, who went by the name “Augustus,” meaning Auspicious or Venerable.
In the northern US, August is a hot, miserable month when many people take summer vacation. In the South, it is hotter and more miserable – and we send children back to school.
It is also, for reasons nobody truly understands, National Panini Month.
And on August 15 each year, Christians all over the world celebrate a holy day devoted to St. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord.
Roman Catholics talk about her Assumption into Heaven, the Eastern Orthodox about her Dormition, or “falling asleep” in peaceful death.
We Lutherans take no position on this old debate. We say instead that she is blessed, and the friend of all people, because by sheer grace she became the mother of Jesus, and in her flesh carried God into the world.