Mass Schedule of Rev. Fr. David Hewko

Today’s Feast of the Assumption is the greatest of all the Blessed Virgin’s festivals in the Church’s Liturgical calendar. In 1950, Pope Pius XII declared infallibly that our Blessed Lady’s Assumption into Heaven – body and soul – is a Dogma of Faith (Apostolic Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus).

Similar in all things to her Divine Son, the glorious triumph of the Blessed Virgin Mary was not completed with her happy and holy death. She had also to resemble Him in the glory of the sepulcher; in the triumph of her Resurrection and glorious Coronation. However, when Our Lady was assumed into Heaven, she was taken up by the power of God; while Our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven under His own Divine power.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the date of Mary’s Assumption is placed between three and fifteen years after Christ’s Ascension; the place from which she was assumed is listed as Jerusalem, where her tomb has been placed since around the 6th Century.

Saint John Damascene writes:

According to tradition, however, Our Lady’s tomb was not exactly found empty. Beautifully fragrant lilies and roses were found where her body “should” have been!

Today’s feast is also associated with herbs and fruits, and the Roman Ritual includes a blessing for such. In some parishes, the faithful bring fresh flowers for Our Lady along with fresh fruits and herbs – especially healing herbs, to be blessed and taken home.

In some coastal areas, the seas are also blessed on this day; especially in and around fishing communities, such as Gloucester, MA. The passages are read from the Gospel of St. John, where Jesus went fishing with His Apostles. The Magnificat is prayed and then the sea is sprinkled with Holy Water and the Sign of the Cross made over it. It is believed that to swim in the waters blessed on this day is curative.

From her infancy, Our Lady rested in the presence of the Most High, and passed her life in the smile of Heaven. Like Wisdom incarnate she took root among the chosen people, to the eye of man she appeared to walk on earth like other mortals, but God was ever her portion and her inheritance; and in the end her abode was in the full assembly of the Saints. It is this happy termination of Mary’s life, her glorious Assumption into Heaven, that we festively celebrate today.

This feast stirs our hearts with several meditations: Holy Mary’s temporal death and burial; her incorruptible body in the grave; her restoration to life and bodily Assumption into Heaven; and finally her triumphant Coronation as Queen of Heaven and Earth; the Mediatrix of all grace.
 
In the first place the feast of the Assumption commemorates the holy death of the Blessed Virgin. As stated in the prayer of the feast, Mary died: (a) – because it was the will of God that she might be in all things like her Divine Son; and (b) – in order that the just might have an example and a model of a holy death.

 
The body of the Blessed Virgin did not suffer the corruption of the tomb, but was soon remitted with her soul and assumed into Heaven. Her going into Heaven is called an assumption rather than an ascension, because it was the effect of a special privilege and grace of God. 

It is impossible to think that Our Lord would have suffered the body of His Mother to see the corruption of the grave. Also, since the delay in resurrection until the end of the world is a consequence of Original Sin, there was no reason why the body of the Immaculate Virgin should long be separated from her soul. Furthermore, it was foretold in Scripture that Mary should triumph over sin and its consequences: concupiscence and death. (Gen.iii. 15)

She triumphed over sin by her Immaculate Conception, over concupiscence by her virginal maternity, and over death by her glorious Assumption. A type of Mary’s Assumption is seen in the Ark of the Covenant, which was made of incorruptible wood, and which is spoken of by the Psalmist and St. John as existing in the heavenly temple. (Ps. cxxxi.8; Apoc. xi.9; cf. xii. 1)

We read in the Divine Office of today’s feast that the Holy Virgin is exalted above all the choirs of Angels in the Heavenly Kingdom. The words of the Canticle of Canticles apply to her: “Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come: thou shalt be crowned.” 

Since the glory of the Saints is proportioned to their merits and dignity, what must be the glory of Mary the Mother of God!

Surely, St. John’s vision (as portrayed here) of the “Woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet and a crown of stars on her head,” is a most accurate description of the Immaculata glorified above all Angels and Saints in Heaven.

The holy death of Mary should teach us to prepare for our own death.To pray fervently in our daily Rosary those words of the Ave Maria:“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Let us always celebrate this glorious feast with gladness and rejoicing, mindful that it is far above all of the Saints’ and Marian festivals of the Church. Let us pray to Our Lady, our heavenly Mother and Queen, that we may sanctify our lives as she sanctified hers – not so much by the performance of many and heroic deeds, but more by our fidelity in the little things and to our ordinary daily duty.

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