Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Glorious Mysteries: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
1—“Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come! The winter is now past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers have appeared in our land.
Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come!”—Cant. ii.
“Who is she that goeth up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense? (Cant. 3)... flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?” (Cant. 8).
“Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?” (Cant. 6).
See the soul of Mary winging its way to God.
See how it leaves the earth, not stainless only, but with its magnificent gifts developed to the utmost to the glory of Him who gave them.
Taste the sweetness of memory as Mary looks down on the scenes where her life was laid.
Feel the trembling eagerness with which she approaches the Throne of the Most High.
See her prostrate there, the handmaid of the Lord.
II.—Put off the garments of thy mourning and affliction, and put on the beauty and honour of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God.—Baruch v.
The last picture of our Lady in holy Scripture shows her seated among the disciples, awaiting the coming of the Holy Ghost. We find no further record of her in its pages, and only from the scanty notices of tradition can we learn anything of the eight, nine, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, or, as some say, twenty-four remaining years of her life on earth. Where she lived in Jerusalem has not come down to us. Some think her home was the Cenacle, which was hallowed by the institution of the Blessed Eucharist, the appearances of Christ after the Resurrection, and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. In the year A.D. 44, the persecution by Herod Agrippa broke out and, according to a very ancient tradition of the Church of Ephesus, St. John took our Lady thither for greater safety. It is a disputed point whether her death took place at Ephesus or at Jerusalem. Perhaps the balance of traditional evidence points to Jerusalem.
We might have thought the life of Mary on earth would close with that of her Divine Son at the Ascension. But there was a long term of exile to come. James, Stephen, many and many a faithful servant was called to his reward, while the Mother was kept waiting. Her heart was drawn two ways. Above, in the peace and glory of His Kingdom, was her Divine Son. On earth, amid temptations and dangers, were the children committed to her by Him. With greater reason than St. Paul she could say: “I am straitened between two, having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.... But to abide still in the flesh is needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you for your furtherance and joy of faith” (Philip 1).
She had a special office to discharge towards the infant Church. During the forty hours of desolation, from Friday afternoon to Easter morning, when their hopes were destroyed and their leaders scattered, the disciples fled to her motherly bosom for refuge and consolation. And when at the Ascension our Lord’s sensible presence was finally withdrawn, she became the centre round which they instinctively gathered. She was a possession common to them all, a joy and protection, the benefit of which must have been simply incalculable. What a resource the Apostles found in her vigilance, her counsel, her knowledge of the designs of God; and in the motherly affection with which she placed all her spiritual treasures at their disposal. With what confidence they relied on the power of her prayer. They brought to her the converts who were daily added to the Church, and who found themselves surrounded by dangers of every kind. How eager these new disciples would be to see the Mother of their Saviour, to hear, as she alone could tell it, the story of Bethlehem and Egypt, and of the holy years at Nazareth. She was herself a living memory of the Three and Thirty Years, the closest of links with their Redeemer. Those who had known Him would tell the less favoured how she recalled to them His ways, His speech, His manner of dealing with others, His very look.
What a continual grace her presence amongst them must have been. What they must have owed to the sanctity and example of the Mother of God. They saw her in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, assisting at the unbloody Sacrifice, absorbed in her thanksgiving after Communion, visiting in company with the holy women the places sanctified by the footsteps of her Son. Whilst she remained to them who had been His inseparable companion for thirty years, who knew Him, understood Him, loved Him as no other could do, their Lord’s presence seemed to linger on among them still.
She may seldom have been seen in public. Her life was mainly given to prayer and meditation on the mysteries in which she had so marvellous a part. But she will have been always ready with her motherly sympathy and help wherever danger threatened, whenever there was guidance or comfort to be given. Every new convert was sure of a welcome, of a willing ear to which he might confide the history of God’s dealings with his soul, of a tender interest in all that touched him, of counsel exquisitely adapted to his need. She took them all to her motherly heart. She sustained the courage of the martyrs and of the faithful under persecution. She was the Refuge of sinners, the Comforter of the afflicted, the Mother of Good Counsel in difficult cases, the Perpetual Succour of all. Think what it must have been in doubts, and temptation, and persecution to be able to have recourse to the wisdom and the charity of the Mother of God!
And now the tidings were spreading through the Church that this sacred life could not be much further prolonged. The perfect acquiescence that made her accept the office assigned her towards the infant Church, could not check the pining of her soul after Him whom she loved:
“As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul hath thirsted after the strong, living God. When shall I come and appear before the face of God?” (Ps. 41).
“Who will give me the wings of a dove, and I will fly away and be at rest?” (Ps. 54).
“For Thee my soul hath thirsted, for Thee my flesh, O how many ways” (Ps. 62).
“Bring my soul out of prison that I may praise Thy Name” (Ps. 141).
In the first instant of her being Mary loved God with a perfect love. This love had gone on increasing every moment of her life. It grew with every look at Jesus, every service rendered Him, every look, and word, and act of His during the long years they spent together. To what a height must that love have reached when she stood by His side on Olivet. When she saw Him ascending above her—without her, into His Kingdom. Only the hand of God that had sustained her on Calvary, and in the first transports of the Resurrection enabled her to love as she loved—and live on.
But the day came at last when the Church no longer needed her visible presence, when the measure of her merits was complete, when the Will of God that had imposed sacrifice for so many years, called her to rest and reward: “Arise, make haste, My love, My beautiful one, and come! The winter is now past, the rain is over and gone, arise, My love, My beautiful one, and come!” There was her “Fiat: Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” And her soul went forth to its Beloved. Her death was the simple consequence of her love, of the vehement tending to God that bore her to Him when He withdrew the force which kept her here. Sinless though she was, she had to die, that she might be more perfectly conformed to the likeness of her Son.