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| The Assumption of the Virgin by Peter-Paul Rubens |
“Mary is assumed into Heaven; the angels rejoice, praising they bless the Lord.” Thus the Church begins this feast of the Assumption in the Office as found in the Extraordinary Form or the more traditional liturgy. Heaven rejoices to receive the one who is so pure, so loving, so intimately united to the King of Heaven. The angels rejoice to receive her who will be crowned the Queen of angels. They bless the Lord who has worked such marvels through her and for her. In hearing this antiphon we receive a key to understanding today’s feast.
We all desire heaven. Any sensible person does not desire to descend into the fires of hell for all eternity, but instead wishes for paradise. But what does it take to get there? What must we do to gain eternal life? We see this played out most particularly in the life of the Blessed Virgin. She demonstrates to us what is necessary in order for us to gain heaven. They are: the grace of God, a willing heart, and our own efforts.
First must come the grace of God. Our Lady is the hallmark of this principle in her very being. We celebrate her as being conceived without the stain of original sin. But this did not come from herself; it was the almighty Trinity, in preparation for the incarnation of the Son, that bestowed this grace upon her. We have not been blessed with this immense gift and grace, but we have received the graces necessary to enter into the Church and receive the sacrament of baptism, which washes us clean of that same stain. We continue to receive these graces through our continued participation in the sacraments, most especially the healing grace of confession and the vivifying grace given to us whenever we receive the Eucharist. If God did not and does not continue to will this for us, it would not have happened; and this offers us the first reason to rejoice in this feast.
The next matter which is required in order to gain heaven is a willing heart. While God lovingly pours out His grace upon us, yet He never coerces us or forces us to respond. We are creatures given the gift of a free will, and it is only in accepting that grace that we can begin to direct our lives towards the eternal mansions. We can compare Eve and Mary to see the difference a willing heart makes. Certainly, Eve was not created with any sin upon her, yet she still made the choice to disobey God along with Adam in the garden, and thus merited for herself and we her children the effects of sin on the human condition. Yet Mary reverses this with the Yes that she offers God when the archangel Gabriel tells her that she will be the Mother of God. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a second-century Church Father, identifies her as the New Eve in union with Christ our New Adam, as highlighted by St. Paul in our second reading, undoing Eve's disobedience with her obedience. We rejoice on this feast day because Mary's fiat has lead to her assumption and entrance into Heaven.
Finally, we must not only receive the grace of God with a willing heart, but we must also supplement this with our own work. While Heaven is certainly a gift of God, it is a gift that we must begin to receive in a foreshadowed sense here and now. If we are truly animated by God's grace and our good will, then how can we not desire to bring this to fruition in our labors? We see this demonstrated in our Gospel, when Mary rushes to the side of her cousin Elizabeth. Our Lady not only desires to love God, but recognizes that we must love God through our neighbor. All of our actions, in fact, are meant to be directed towards this goal, even the menial tasks such as our eating or cleaning or sleeping. Our Lady's assumption thus does not occur only in a physical sense at the end of her earthly life, but is spiritually occurring every day in her prayers and actions. Each moment of her life draws her closer and closer to the glories of paradise, until that blessed moment when she follows her Son in entering body and soul, in the totality of her being, into the blessings of eternal life.
Let us rejoice, then, on this glorious day, that God has willed that His holy one would not see corruption. Let us rejoice in the triumph of Our Lady over the devil through her mission as the Mother of God. Let us rejoice that she has entered into the final glory to stand at the right side of her Son arrayed in glory for all eternity. But let us also pray to her that we too may receive the grace necessary to be converted from sin and directed on the path of holiness. Let us beseech her motherly aid for we her spiritual children: that we may not fall into temptation, but be elevated so as to imitate her perfect obedience to God. Let us be more fervent in praying our Hail Marys and our rosaries that we may imitate her example of obedience and charity, so that she who is praying for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, may raise us to join her, to join her Son, and to join all the angels and saints in the marvels that await the blessed in the beatitude of heaven.
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