A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon beneath her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
⸺Revelation 12:1
Each year on August 15th the Church commemorates the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heavenly glory. On this feast, we both give honor to the Virgin Mary, “crowned this day with surpassing glory” and “exalted above the choirs of Angels,” and praise the God, who, looking on her lowliness, “raised her to this grace” (Vigil Mass of the Assumption). In doing so, we also ask God that, through her intercession and “always attentive to the things that are above,” we may constantly long for him and “merit to be sharers of her glory” (Day Mass of the Assumption).
Yet, as in all things, the Church is also our teacher. On this feast, she places before us the figure of Mary assumed into heaven. Contemplating this mystery, we see that the eternal life Mary enjoys now in heaven is simply the continuation and the crowning perfection of the life of charity, the life of friendship with the Triune God, that she lived by grace while on earth.
Since Mary is the “the beginning and image of [the] Church’s coming to perfection,” this fact reminds us of a fundamental truth of the Christian life (Preface of the Assumption). Through the gift of charity, we have already begun to live by grace that eternal life of friendship with God that we hope to enjoy forever in heaven.
But how easy it is for us to lose sight of this truth and fail to live according to this reality!
While on earth, we hold the treasure of charity in fragile and earthen vessels (2 Cor 4:7). We see this truth, but only dimly as in a mirror, groaning while we await the redemption of our bodies (1 Cor 13:12, Rom 8:23). And yet, we can still truly confess with St. Paul: “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20).
Attempting to capture the complexity of this reality, spiritual writers and theologians have often used an image drawn from our Lord’s parable of the mustard seed. As the mustard plant is sown as a tiny seed before growing into a mighty bush, so the life of charity begins in the faithful soul through grace, however imperceptibly, before reaching the perfection of glory (cf. Matt 13:31-32). Simply put, grace is the seed of glory.
Why is it important to know this truth? Because in the life of charity, all growth comes from God, but at the same time he does not will to save us without us (1 Cor 3:6, CCC 1847). In other words, although charity and our growth in this life of friendship with God are his gift to us, God requires of us our cooperation, that we desire and strive to grow in this life and ask him to perfect it within us.“If you knew the gift of God,” Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10). In leading us to contemplate the mystery of the Assumption, the Church teaches us what this gift of God is and gives us the confidence to ask for this grace through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the “sign of sure hope and comfort to [God’s] pilgrim people” (Preface of the Assumption).
Almighty ever-living God, who assumed the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of your Son, body and soul into heavenly glory, grant, we pray, that, always attentive to the things that are above, we may merit to be sharers of her glory, and, through her intercession, may be brought into the glory of the resurrection. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
⸺Collect and Post Communion of the Assumption
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Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)
