Aug 15 – Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Mary is taken up body and soul into the glory of Heaven, and with God and in God she is Queen of Heaven and earth. And is she really so remote from us? The contrary is true. Precisely because she is with God and in God, she is very close to each one of us. While she lived on this earth, she could only be close to a few people. Being in God, who is close to us, actually, ‘within’ all of us, Mary shares in this closeness of God. Being in God and with God, she is close to each one of us, knows our hearts, can hear our prayers, can help us with her motherly kindness and has been given to us, as the Lord said, precisely as a “mother” to whom we can turn at every moment. – Pope Benedict XVI
Apo 11:19;12:1-6,10
1 Cor 15:20-26
Lk 1:39-56
Of all women you are the most blessed…
Saint Augustine wrote, “The world being unworthy to receive the Son of God directly from the hands of the Father, he gave his Son to Mary for the world to receive him from her.”
Because she said YES and intentionally walked in the LIGHT with every step, she is Blessed. We revere Mary. We honour Mary. But her being ‘blessed among women’ by the Lord God didn’t shelter her on his earth. In fact, the path she walked seems to me to be the hardest path ever walked by a mother.
I imagine most of us have (often) put our mothers through grief – grief usually caused by our putting our wants before all else; basically pleasing ourselves, doing what we wanted – want – to do without much thought, or even any thought, about others, even our own mother. (And make no mistake, this ‘I have to take care of my wants first’ is truly the mindset of today’s Western world. Putting oneself first and foremost, above all – doing what makes oneself happy, even if at the expense of others we ‘love’.) Yes, we cause grief to those we love, most often, our very own mother.
Mary’s heart grieved with pain for her Son, but it wasn’t because He put Himself first, it was because He sacrificed himself for all others. For every human. For each human. For me. For you.
God does not always spare the good from grief. The Father spared not the Son, and the Son spared not the mother — Fulton Sheen
The heart of Mary grieving because her perfect Son had to be THE sacrifice for the rest of her children. Can any of us even fathom this reality? Even knowing that this is the plan of God for the salvation of the world. I don’t think we can begin to contemplate the complexity of what our human Mother Mary experienced. I don’t think we can begin to formulate a thought to describe what Mary encountered in her core. Many grieved the unimaginable inhumane torture that Jesus endured for you, for me, but none as deeply, as personally and as painfully as Mary. And Jesus knew the incredible depth of torture his own mother was experiencing as she walked on Calvary with Him; making it all that much more difficult for him to continue, knowing that each step, each second on the cross was of unequalled pain in the body, in the heart, of His mother.
And yet, like His mother, His YES to God was unequivocal.
The next time you say the Hail Mary, pray it slowly and visualize the manner in which Mary, our Mother, walked out her YES.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Gina Ulicny)
Prayer: Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen
Thanksgiving: Lord God Almighty, thank you for our Mother Mary.
OXYGEN 
Leave a comment