Saturday, October 24, 2020 –
The Fourth Glorious Mystery: The Assumption of our Blessed Mother into Heaven
Mary does not suffer the stain of death, but is taken directly to heaven at the end of her earthly life
WHAT THE ASCENSION WAS to our Lord, that the Assumption is to our Lady. Certainly she, the new Garden of Paradise, in which grew the Lily of divine sinlessness and the red Rose of the Church, should not be delivered over and forgotten by the heavenly Gardener. She, in whose womb was celebrated the nuptials of eternity and time is more of eternity than time. If husband and wife in marriage are made two in one flesh, then shall not she, who is the new Eve of the new Adam, be also made two in one spirit with Him?
As Christ ascended into heaven to the unity of the divine nature, so Mary is assumed into heaven in the unity of Christ’s human nature. Her mystical flight is the event to which our whole generation moves.
Our age of carnalities, which loves the “body beautiful,” is lifted out of its despair by the Assumption, to honor a body that is beautiful because it is a temple of God, a gate through which the Word of heaven passed to earth, a Tower of Ivory up which climbed divine Love to kiss upon the lips of His Mother a mystic rose. *
To this daughter of the new Eve goes up our prayer:
The celestial traitress play
And all mankind to bliss betray;
With sacrosanct cajoleries
And starry treachery of your eyes,
Tempt us back to Paradise.
[* See Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loreto)]
For each bead (1-10) in the decade, meditate (think) on the list below:
- After the apostles have dispersed, the Blessed Mother goes to live with John, the beloved disciple.
- Mary lives many years on earth after the death of Christ.
- She is a source of comfort, consolation and strength to the apostles.
- As she had nourished the infant Jesus, so she nourishes spiritually the infant Church.
- Mary dies, not of bodily infirmity, but is wholly overcome in a rapture of divine love.
- Her body as well as her soul is taken up into heaven.
- After her burial the apostles go to the tomb and find only fragrant lilies.
- Jesus does not permit the sinless body of His Mother to decay in the grave.
- Corruption of the body is an effect of original sin from which Mary is totally exempted.
- The bodies of all mankind, at the last judgment, will be brought back and united again to the soul.
Spiritual Fruit of the Mystery: Desire for Heaven and Grace of a Happy Death
Queen of all saints, pray for us!
NOTE: These meditations are a compilation of several different sources that I have found helpful over the years:
- Meditations on the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary by Fulton Sheen
- Praying the Rosary without Distractions from The Rosary Center and Confraternity
- Pray the Rosary Daily from Marian Press
- Quick Meditations on Every Mystery of the Rosary by Ascension Press
