I. "Nor wilt Thou give Thy holy one to see corruption"
(Ps. xv. 10).
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin's body into heaven was the last of her many earthly privileges. It was saved from the degradation of putrefaction, was raised to life, and united with her soul in glory. The Ark of the Covenant was a figure of Mary. It contained the word of God on the two tables, a portion of the bread which came from heaven, and the brazen serpent which saved the people from death, all of them emblems of Our Lord. That ark was of incorruptible wood, prefiguring her incorruption. The putrefaction of our bodies aptly punishes the corruption which we have deliberately introduced into our souls; it is fitting that all our comeliness and pride should be brought down to the awful hideousness of the tomb. Soul and body mutually act and react. The infinite sanctity of God the Son preserved His Mother from the smallest taint of spiritual corruption; and to this corresponded her preservation from bodily corruption. As "the corruptible body weigheth down the soul" (Wisd. ix. 15), so that soul which never suffered the death of sin, drew the body after it to a renewed life. Keep your soul free from the taint of sin, and its grace will overflow on your body. You will be freed from many of the physical evils of life which proceed from the degradation and foulness of the sinful soul.
II. "Arise, O Lord, into Thy resting-place; Thou and the Ark which Thou hast sanctified" (Ps. cxxxi. 8). The relation of the Blessed Virgin to the Son of God demanded her Assumption. That Ark on which He rested corporally while on earth was fitly associated with His Divine Presence in heaven. St. Augustine could not endure to think that the flesh and blood which had for a time been one with the flesh and blood of the Divine Humanity, should be left to putrefy in the grave. Jesus rendered to Mary according to her works; she had given Him bodily life on earth; He in return gave her back her bodily life after she had surrendered it in love for Him. She received Him corporally into her home on earth, He took her corporally to His eternal home. Further, as the Blessed Virgin co-operated in the work of the Incarnation and Redemption, it was fitting that she should profit by it in a more excellent way ; not only in the soul by her preservation from sin, but also in the body by her delivery from death. Her exceptional position also as to grace, dignity, and work on earth, was rewarded by an exceptional corresponding glory in her resurrection. Admire the justice and generosity in Our Lord's treatment of His Blessed Mother; and from this, judge of the generosity with which He will recompense your services.
III. The Assumption bears an analogy to the other mysteries in the life of Our Lord and the Holy Virgin. God's works form an harmonious whole; if we know some of His dealings, we may argue as to others, in grace as in nature. All was miraculous or exceptional with the Blessed Virgin, her predestination, her Immaculate Conception, her sinlessness, her virginity, her maternity, her sorrows. The end must be as the beginning, to make the series of God's works in her complete. "May the Lord keep thy coming in and thy going out" (Ps. cxx. 8). Her death must harmonize with all the rest. If Our Lady s body had "seen corruption," it would have been a greater breach in the continuity of the Incarnation series, than her Assumption is in that of ordinary nature. Further, there is, all through, a correspondence of Our Lady's life and mysteries with those of Christ. His Nativity, Obscurity, Presentation, Passion are reflected in her. The Ascension, likewise, has its counterpart in the Assumption. So too, the relation of your life to Our Lord's will find its parallel in your death. Your moral and spiritual position here will be the index to your position hereafter. Continuity and harmony must prevail in time and eternity.
Want to read this in a Real Book?
