The Book of the Holy Rosary: Part III, Chapter VIII. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
“To-day, the sacred and living ark of the God of life, which conceived the Creator of all in the womb, rests in the temple of the Lord, which is not built with hands. David, her father, rejoices, and with him the angels sing in choirs, the archangels praise her, the hosts of heaven glorify her, the principalities exult, the powers rejoice, the dominions wish her joy, the thrones keep high festival, the cherubim extol her, the seraphim proclaim her glory. To-day, Eden receives the living Paradise of the new Adam, in whom condemnation ends, in whom the tree of life hath been planted, and in whom our nakedness is covered” (St John Damascene II., Sermon on the Death of the Blessed Virgin).
The Assumption of the earthly Mother of Jesus into heaven may be easily seen, on a little reflection, to follow in the way of an event belonging to the fitting and beautiful order of the Divine plan of human redemption. Adam was created and placed in Paradise the sovereign lord over the whole of the work of God; but he was alone, and because it was not good for him to be alone, God said, “Let us make him a helpmate;” and thus creation received a sovereign lady, associated in power and dominion over all the works of God with its sovereign lord. The sovereign lady fell into transgression, and induced her lord to participate in her sin. Companions in the transgression, they remained companions in its penalties. Eve was not taken away from Adam, and no new companion was given to him in her place, but both were sent together to till the earth in toil and patience for their subsistence; for where it pleased God that Adam should be, there it was becoming that Eve should be found at his side; for even in fallen fortunes, where the bridegroom is there it is fitting that the bride be also. As, then, it was through Eve that the first Adam left the original Paradise and went to seek his fortunes in the rude world among its thorns and thistles, and as it was notwithstanding fitting that Eve, through whom he had been thrown upon the world, should find herself where Adam was, by his side, the inseparable companion of his toil and banishment, as she had been of his dignity and glory; so, in like manner, in the case of the second Adam, He came into the banishment of the first Adam to seek for and to espouse to Himself His Mystical Bride the Church; and it was undoubtedly becoming that she through whom He deigned to enter the first Adam’s banishment,—she from whose virgin womb He vouchsafed to assume Adam’s nature,—she whom He deigns to call by the name of Mother, should be ever near to Him at His side in the kingdom of His glory. If He Himself has said, “If any man minister to Me, let Him follow Me; and where I am, there also shall my minister be” (John xii. 26); and if it be thus becoming that the minister of the King should be where his Master is, in how much higher a degree is it becoming that where the Son is there also the Mother should be;
and where the King and Mystical Bridegroom of the Church is, there also the Mystical Bride Herself, in the person of her Queen should also be? “Rise up, O Lord, into Thy rest,” says the Holy Psalmist; but not in solitary dignity, “Thou and the Ark of Thy sanctification” (Ps. cxxxi. 8).
Where Jesus therefore is, now that He is ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father, what can be more becoming than that the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of the human nature in which He has ascended, the Ark of His sanctification should be present with Him? Where can the poor exiled children of Eve find a more consoling pledge that it will be one day given to them to see the accomplishment of all the great and glorious promises that have been made to them in Jesus Christ than in the Assumption of Mary?
“Who is she who cometh up from the wilderness flowing with delights, leaning on her Beloved?” (Cant. viii. 5.) “This is she,” writes St Peter Damian, “the Queen whom the daughters of Sion pronounced most blessed, and whom the princesses praised (Prov. xxxi. 28). She hath ascended to-day from the wilderness, that is, she has been raised from her lowliness in the world to the height of a royal throne, ‘flowing with an abundance of delights;’—with an abundance of delights indeed, for ‘many daughters have gathered together riches, but this one hath surpassed them all.’ And, truly, her delights are without number, for as she receives the Holy Ghost, so she conceives the Son of God, gives birth to the King of glory, enters the heavens, and laden with riches and flowing with delights, she flees away to her eternal kingdom. ‘Leaning upon her Beloved,’ the Lord of hosts is the Father of her Beloved, in whom He was well-pleased. Upon Him, then, leans this most happy Mother, and reclining on the golden couch of the Divine Majesty, she reposes in the arms of her Spouse; yes, of her Son! Oh, how great the dignity, how special the power, to lean upon Him on whom the hosts of the angels reverently fix their gaze!” (St Peter Damian, Sermon on the Assumption).
“Rise up, O Lord, into Thy rest,” says the holy Psalmist, “Thou and the Ark of Thy Sanctification.” “This Ark,” writes Hesychius of Jerusalem, “can without doubt be no other than the Virgin Mother of God. For if Christ be the jewel, Mary is certainly its casket; if Jesus be the Sun, Mary is necessarily to be called the firmament; if He be the flower of immortality, the Blessed Virgin will of necessity be the stem which cannot wither, the garden that is ever-blooming” (Hesychius, Homily, § iii.)
But the Mystery of the Assumption, besides that it is one of the Glorious Mysteries of our faith, also contains a rich vein of consolation for our mortal pilgrimage, which it would be a sad want of gratitude and wisdom to fail in duly considering.
“It is appointed to all men,” says St Paul, “once to die, and after that the judgment.” Our mortal pilgrimage, be it long or be it short, terminates in death, from which there is no escape, as even all the heathen writers freely confess.
“O death!” says the son of Sirach, “how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that hath peace in his possessions, to a man that is at rest, and whose ways are prosperous in all things, and that is yet able to take meat!” (Ecclus. xli. 1); and then he goes on to say, “Fear not the sentence of death. Remember what things have been before thee, and what shall come after thee. This sentence is from the Lord upon all flesh.” “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” are the words in which God has conveyed His sentence; and by nature all men fear to die. “Charity, however,” says the Canticle of Canticles, “is strong as death, and the blow which nature dreads, grace accepts, for death to the faithful Christian becomes the gate of an immortal life.
Thus St John Damascene writes, “Oh, wonder that truly surpasses the condition of nature! Oh thing full of marvel! Death, which once was hated and abhorred, is now a thing that is commended and pronounced blessed. That which once occasioned grief and mourning, tears and sorrow, is now a cause of gladness and joyful festivity. If it be asked how? Because that, to all the servants of God, whose death is said to be blessed, the termination of their life procures for them that they become fixed and confirmed in the favour of God; and for this reason their death is said to be happy and blest. For their death makes them perfected in bliss, gaining for them that their virtue is no longer subject to any change, according to the saying of Ecclesiasticus, ‘Before death call no man blessed’ (Ecclus. xi. 30); words, however, that are not to be understood of the Blessed Virgin. For thy blessedness, O Mary, came not to thee through death, neither was it thy passage from this world which fixed thy perfection nor placed thee in security; for the beginning of every good, its middle and end, thy perfect security and confirmation in truth was contained in thy miraculous conception, in the Divine indwelling, and thy immaculate childbirth; and hence, as thou hast thyself truly said, that all generations should call thee blessed, not from the moment of thy death, but from that of thy conception. Wherefore, it was not death which made thee happy, but it is thou who hast made death cheerful, inasmuch as thou hast taken away its bitterness, and hast changed it into a joy. For which reason thy sacred body was committed to religious burial, the angels partly surrounding and partly following in thy train, and omitting no kind of honour which it was befitting to show to the Mother of their Lord; the Apostles also, and the whole multitude of the Church, singing divinely-inspired hymns: ‘He shall be filled with the good things of Thy house. Thy holy temple is wonderful in equity’ (Ps. lxiv. 6.) And again, ‘The Most High hath sanctified His tabernacle’ (Ps. xlv. 5.) ‘The mount of God is a fruitful mountain, a mountain in which it pleaseth Him to dwell’ (Ps. lxvii. 17). The company of the Apostles taking thee up, the true Ark of God, as the priests formerly lifted up the typical ark, and laying thee in the tomb, brought thee, as it were, through another Jordan to the true land of promise, the Jerusalem that is above, the mother of all the faithful, whose maker and builder is God. For thy soul did not go down to hell, neither did thy flesh see corruption. Neither was thy immaculate body, exempt as it had been from the least stain, left to remain in the earth, but thou wast translated to the royal throne of bliss in the heavens,—thou, their Queen, Lady, and Mistress, the true and very Mother of God” (St John Damascene, Sermon on the Assumption, § xii.)