“O glorious Lady, throned in light,
Sublime above the starry height!”
Mary’s Assumption, body and soul, into heaven has never been defined as an article of Faith; probably because no one ever seriously questioned it. Christian tradition relates that she died in Jerusalem, whence she had returned after several years at the home of Saint John in Ephesus. At the moment of her death, all the apostles except Saint Thomas were miraculously transported to her bedside, where they wept sorrowfully because she was to leave them. According to tradition, her Assumption was made known to them when Thomas arrived after her burial and wished to see her. The tomb was empty of its dear treasure but filled with beautiful lilies. Whatever the correctness of the tradition – and there is no serious reason to doubt it – it is quite fitting that God, Who preserved Mary from the first moment of her existence from any stain of sin, should have spared her body the penalty of corruption, which is part of the debt of sin:
“Mary has been taken up into heaven: therefore do the angels in their choirs rejoice!”
Mary’s longing for her Son and God must have been so intense during those years on earth after His death and Ascension that the very distance between heaven and earth melted away by the fire of her love. She had Him as we also have, in Holy Communion; but her love was so intense that she lived only for the day when she would be reunited with Him in heaven. For the time being, she was needed on earth to mother the Church He had founded, to console the apostles in their trials, to do the thousand things that only she could do to make life on earth endurable for the first Christians. And whatever her longing for her Son, she did her allotted work, the Will of God, with all her heart. Yet, busy as she was on earth, her heart was with her Son.
We know from the very imperfect figure of human love that the goal of love is union. What we love we want to be near, always. Nearness for a time can never satisfy. “Until death do us part,” the words that tell us what we expect of human love, are an expression of permanence. No love that lasts any less than until death can be dignified by the name of love at all. And while that seems to be the ultimate in human love – perhaps it is all one can expect of anything human – Mary’s love for her Son demonstrates that even “unto death” is not long enough. Love must last beyond the bounds of space and time, past death and throughout eternity. The love of Christ for us is that way: timeless, spaceless: your Communion this morning in London or Chicago or Bombay brought you into union with Him Who, physically speaking, died nineteen hundred years ago in Palestine but lives on forever in a love that will not die. When a religious makes her vows “unto death,” she is imitating Mary’s life in the years at Jerusalem and Ephesus. Perhaps it was just to provide religious with a perfect model that Mary lived there for those long lonely years after her Son had gone to heaven. At Bethlehem she was the model of the priest, being the first human agency in whose pure hands rested the Maker of heaven and earth. In the Visitation she was the first missionary priest or sister or brother, hurrying to bring Christ to someone who was in darkness. In her long hidden life at Nazareth she was an example to all the world’s busy and unsung parents, showing them the dignity of the endless tiresome tasks of homemaking. Now at Ephesus, where she worked for the new Church and helped the apostolate with her prayers, she gave an example to all the courageous men and women who in the coming centuries would be contemplative religious, praying in loving loneliness for heaven.
The Assumption is a feast of pure joy, as the first Assumption day must have been in heaven. All heaven awaited its Queen – Queen of Angels, of Patriarchs, of Prophets, of Apostles (one of that little flock was already there when she came) of Martyrs, of Confessors, of Virgins – of All Saints. It is beyond our limited imaginations to picture the joy of her heart at being once more united to her Son. The Church has chosen for the Mass of the day the most joyful expressions possible. From the Introit’s happy phrases the happiness extends throughout the whole Mass:
“Let us all rejoice in the Lord,
celebrating a festal day in honor of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, on whose Assumption the
angels rejoice and give praise to the Son of God.”
In all Christian countries, Assumption Day has been a great feast for so many years that its beginnings are lost in antiquity. Now the feast is a Holyday of Obligation, one of two feasts of Our Lady to be so designated in our country. In a doubting and unhappy world this feast day stands as a perpetual reminder of one who was not bound down to this earth even while she lived upon it. It recalls to us that, busy though we may be with this world, we have here no lasting city. Saint Augustine’s words, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless ever until they rest in Thee,” were never more truly demonstrated than in the life of Mary, who on Assumption Day entered upon the ever-lasting contemplation of God as He is in heaven. Mary’s love was simply too great for this world to hold, and only heaven could contain it.
“Hail O star of ocean,
God’s own Mother blest.
Ever sinless Virgin,
Gate of heaven’s rest!
Show thyself a mother.
May the Word Divine,
Born for us thine infant
Hear our prayers through thine.
Keep our life all spotless,
Make our way secure
Till we find in Jesus
Joys that shall endure.”