How Glorious Was the Triumph of Mary in Her Ascent to Heaven, and How Exalted the Throne to Which She Was Raised
It might seem fitting that Holy Church, on this day of the Assumption of Mary into heaven, should invite us to weep rather than to rejoice, since our sweet Mother has departed from this earth and left us bereft of her dear presence. So St. Bernard says: it seems we should rather weep than exult—Plangendum nobis, quam plaudendum magis esse videtur. But no: Holy Church invites us to rejoice. “Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a festival in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” And rightly so; for if we love this our Mother, we ought to congratulate ourselves more upon her glory than upon our own particular consolation. What son does not rejoice, though he be parted from his mother, if he learns that she is going to take possession of a kingdom? Mary, today, is to be crowned Queen of heaven; and shall we not keep festival and rejoice, if we truly love her? Let us all rejoice, let us rejoice: Gaudeamus omnes, et gaudeamus. And that we may be the more consoled by her exaltation, let us consider, first, how glorious was the triumph of Mary as she ascended into heaven; and secondly, how exalted was the throne to which she was raised there.
First Point. After Jesus Christ our Savior had completed the work of our redemption by his death, the angels longed to have him with them in their heavenly country. And so they continually besought him, repeating the words of David: “Arise, O Lord, into thy resting-place, thou and the ark which thou hast sanctified” (Ps. 131:8). Come, O Lord, now that you have redeemed men; come to your kingdom with us, and bring with you also the living ark of your sanctification—that is, your Mother, who was the ark sanctified by you when you dwelt within her womb. Thus St. Bernardine of Siena puts these words into the mouth of the angels: “Let your most holy Mother Mary also ascend, sanctified by your conception.” At length, then, our Lord chose to satisfy the desire of those citizens of heaven by calling Mary to paradise. But if he willed that the ark of the covenant should be brought with great pomp into the city of David—“And David and all the house of Israel brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord with joyful shouting, and with sound of trumpet” (2 Kings 6:15)—with far more noble and glorious pomp did he ordain that his Mother should enter into heaven. The prophet Elias was carried up to heaven in a chariot of fire, which, as the interpreters say, was nothing other than a company of angels who raised him from the earth. But to bring you into heaven, O Mother of God, says Rupert the Abbot, a single company of angels was not enough; the very King of heaven came himself, with all his celestial court, to accompany you.
St. Bernardine of Siena is of the same opinion: that Jesus Christ, to honor the triumph of Mary, came himself from paradise to meet and accompany her. And it was precisely for this purpose, says St. Anselm, that the Redeemer chose to ascend before his Mother—not only to prepare a throne for her in that palace, but also to make her entrance into heaven more glorious by accompanying her himself, with all the blessed spirits. Hence St. Peter Damian, contemplating the splendor of this Assumption of Mary into heaven, says that we shall find it more glorious than the Ascension of Jesus Christ; for the angels alone came to meet the Redeemer, but the Blessed Virgin went to glory met and escorted by the Lord of glory himself, and by all the blessed company of saints and angels. And so Guerric the Abbot represents the divine Word as speaking thus: “I descended from heaven to earth to give glory to my Father; but afterward, to render honor to my Mother, I ascended again into heaven, that I might come to meet her and accompany her by my presence to paradise.”
Let us now consider how the Savior really did come from heaven to meet his Mother, and at the first meeting said to console her: “Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come; for winter is now past… and gone” (Cant. 2:10–11). Come, my dear Mother, my beautiful and pure dove, leave that valley of tears where you have suffered so much for love of me: “Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come: thou shalt be crowned” (Cant. 4:8). Come, with soul and body, to enjoy the reward of your holy life. If you have suffered much upon earth, far greater is the glory I have prepared for you in heaven. Come and sit near me; come to receive the crown I will give you as Queen of the universe.
And now, behold, Mary leaves the earth; and calling to mind the many graces she had there received from her Lord, she looks back upon it with affection and with compassion at once, leaving behind so many poor children amid so many miseries and dangers. Now Jesus offers her his hand, and the blessed Mother rises into the air, passing beyond the clouds and the spheres. Behold her now arrived at the gates of heaven. When monarchs enter to take possession of their kingdom, they do not pass through the gates of the city; either the gates are taken away entirely, or they pass over them. And so, as the angels cried when Jesus Christ entered paradise—“Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates; and the King of glory shall enter in” (Ps. 23:7)—so now, as Mary goes to take possession of the kingdom of heaven, the angels who accompany her cry to the others within: “Lift up your gates, ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates, and the Queen of glory shall enter in.”
And now Mary enters the blessed country. But on her entrance the celestial spirits, seeing her so beautiful and so glorious, ask of those who come from without—as Origen describes it—all rejoicing in heaven with one voice: “Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?” (Cant. 8:5). And who is this creature so lovely, who comes from the desert of the earth, a place so full of thorns and tribulation? Yet she comes so pure and so rich in virtue, supported by her beloved Lord, who deigns himself to accompany her with such great honor. Who is she? The angels who accompany her answer: This is the Mother of our King; she is our Queen; she is the blessed one among women, the full of grace, the saint of saints, the beloved of God, the immaculate, the dove, the most beautiful of all creatures. And then all those blessed spirits begin to bless and praise her, singing—with more reason than the Hebrews said to Judith—“Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honor of our people” (Judith 15:10). Ah, our Lady and our Queen, you are then the glory of paradise, the gladness of our country, the honor of us all. Be ever welcome, be ever blessed. Behold your kingdom; behold us, all your servants, ready at your command.
Then all the saints who were at that time in paradise came to welcome her and salute her as their Queen. All the holy virgins came: “The daughters saw her, and declared her most blessed… and praised her” (Cant. 6:8). We too, they said, O most blessed Lady, are queens of this kingdom; but you are our Queen, for you were the first to give us the great example of consecrating our virginity to God; we all bless and thank you for it. Then came the holy confessors to salute her as their teacher, who had taught them so many beautiful virtues by her holy life. The holy martyrs came also to salute her as their Queen, because by her great constancy in the sorrows of her Son’s Passion she had taught them—and had obtained for them by her merits—the strength to give their lives for the faith. St. James came too, the only one of the apostles then in paradise, to thank her in the name of all the others for the great comfort and support she had given them while she was upon earth. The prophets next came to salute her, saying: Ah, Lady, you were the one foreshadowed in our prophecies. The holy patriarchs came and said to her: O Mary, you were our hope, so long and so deeply sighed for by us. And among these came our first parents, Adam and Eve, to thank her with deeper affection: Ah, beloved daughter, they said, you have repaired the harm we did to the human race; you have obtained for the world that blessing we lost by our sin; by you we are saved—be forever blessed for it.
Then came holy Simeon to kiss her feet, joyfully reminding her of that day when he received the infant Jesus from her hands. St. Zachary and St. Elizabeth came, and thanked her again for that loving visit which, with such humility and charity, she had made to their dwelling, and through which they received so many treasures of grace. St. John the Baptist came with still greater affection, to thank her for having sanctified him by the sound of her voice. But what must her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, have said when they came to salute her? O God, with what tenderness must they have blessed her, saying: Ah, beloved daughter, what happiness was ours to have such a child! Be now our Queen, for you are the Mother of our God; as such we salute and adore you. But who can comprehend the affection with which her dear spouse St. Joseph came to greet her? Who can describe the joy the holy patriarch felt at seeing his spouse arrive in heaven with such triumph, made Queen of all paradise? With what tenderness must he have said to her: Ah, my Lady and spouse, how shall I ever thank our God as I ought for having made me your spouse—you who are his true Mother? Through you I was found worthy, on earth, to care for the childhood of the Incarnate Word, to hold him so often in my arms, and to receive from him so many special favors. Blessed be the moments I spent in life serving Jesus and you, my holy spouse. Behold our Jesus: let us console ourselves that now he no longer lies stretched in a stable upon the hay, as we saw him born in Bethlehem; he no longer lives poor and despised in a workshop, as once he lived with us in Nazareth; he no longer hangs upon a shameful gibbet, as when he died for the salvation of the world in Jerusalem; but he sits at the right hand of the Father, as King and Lord of heaven and earth. And now, O my Queen, we shall never again depart from his holy feet, where we shall bless and love him for all eternity.
Then all the angels came to salute her, and she, the great Queen, thanked them all for the help they had given her upon earth—giving special thanks to the Archangel St. Gabriel, the happy ambassador of all her glories, when he came to announce to her that she was to be made the Mother of God. Then the humble and holy Virgin, kneeling, adores the divine majesty, and, wholly lost in the consciousness of her own nothingness, thanks him for all the graces bestowed on her solely by his goodness, and especially for having made her the Mother of the Eternal Word. Let those who can, comprehend with what love the most holy Trinity blessed her; let them comprehend what a welcome the Eternal Father gave to his daughter, the Son to his Mother, the Holy Spirit to his spouse. The Father crowns her by sharing with her his power, the Son his wisdom, the Holy Spirit his love. And the three divine Persons, establishing her throne at the right hand of Jesus, declare her universal Queen of heaven and earth, and command the angels and all creatures to acknowledge her as their Queen, and as their Queen to serve and obey her. And here we pass on to consider how exalted was this throne to which Mary was raised in heaven.
Second Point. If the human mind, says St. Bernard, cannot comprehend the immense glory which God has prepared in heaven for those who have loved him on earth, as the Apostle declares, who will ever comprehend what he has prepared for her who bore him?—Quid praeparavit gignenti se? What glory did he prepare for his beloved Mother, he who on earth loved her more than all men, and who, even from the first moment of her creation, loved her more than all men and angels together? Justly, then, does Holy Church sing that Mary, having loved God more than all the angels, has been exalted above all the angels in heaven: “The holy Mother of God has been exalted above the choirs of angels, into the heavenly kingdom.” Yes, she was exalted above the angels, says William the Abbot, so that she sees no one above her but her Son, who is the only-begotten Son of God.
Hence the learned Gerson asserts that, since all the orders of angels and saints are divided into three hierarchies—as the Angelic Doctor teaches, and St. Dionysius likewise—Mary constitutes in heaven a hierarchy by herself, the most sublime of all, and second only to God. And as the lady of a house, St. Antoninus adds, is beyond all comparison above her servants, so is the glory of Mary beyond all comparison greater than that of the angels. And to understand this it is enough to know what David said: that this Queen was seated at the right hand of the Son. “The queen stood on thy right hand” (Ps. 44:10)—Astitit regina a dextris tuis—which St. Athanasius explained precisely of Mary, saying: Mary is placed at the right hand of God.
The works of Mary, as St. Ildephonsus says, incomparably surpassed in merit the works of all the saints; and therefore the reward and the glory she merited cannot be conceived. And if it is certain that God rewards according to merit, as the Apostle says—“Who will render to every man according to his works” (Rom. 2:6)—it is also certain, says St. Thomas, that the Virgin, who exceeded in merit all men and angels, must have been exalted above all the celestial orders. In short, adds St. Bernard, let us measure the singular grace she acquired on earth, and then we may measure the singular glory she has obtained in heaven.
The glory of Mary, observes a learned author, was a full glory, a complete glory, different from that which the other saints possess in heaven. It is true that in heaven all the blessed enjoy perfect peace and full contentment; yet it will always be true that none of them enjoys the glory he might have merited, had he loved and served God with greater fidelity. And so, although the saints in heaven desire nothing beyond what they possess, there is yet, in fact, something they might have desired. It is true, too, that the sins they committed and the time they lost bring them no suffering there; but it cannot be denied that the greater good done in life, innocence preserved, and time well spent give the greatest contentment. Mary in heaven desires nothing, and has nothing to desire. Who among the saints in paradise, says St. Augustine, if asked whether he has committed sins, could answer no—except Mary? It is certain, as the holy Council of Trent has defined, that Mary never committed any sin, not even the least. She not only never lost the divine grace, nor ever dimmed it, but she never left it idle: she never did an action that was not meritorious; she never spoke a word, nor had a thought, nor drew a breath, that was not directed to the greater glory of God. In a word, she never for one moment slackened or stopped in her course toward God; she never lost anything through negligence, for she always corresponded with grace to the utmost of her power, and loved God as much as she could love him. O Lord, she now says to him in heaven, if I have not loved you as much as you deserve, at least I have loved you as much as I could.
The graces of the saints were various, as St. Paul said: “There are diversities of graces” (1 Cor. 12:4). And so each of them, corresponding to the grace received, became excellent in some particular virtue: one in saving souls, one in a life of penance, one in suffering torments, one in contemplation. Hence Holy Church, in celebrating their feasts, says of each: “There was not found the like to him.” And as they differ in their merits, so they differ in glory in heaven; “for star differeth from star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41). The apostles differ from the martyrs, the confessors from the virgins, the innocents from the penitents. But the holy Virgin, being full of all graces, excelled every saint in every kind of virtue: she was the apostle of the apostles; she was the Queen of martyrs, for she suffered more than all of them; she was the standard-bearer of the virgins, the model of married women. She united in herself a perfect innocence with a perfect mortification; in a word, she gathered into her heart all the most heroic virtues that any saint has ever practiced. Hence it was said of her: “The queen stood on thy right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety” (Ps. 44:10); for all the graces, the privileges, and the merits of the other saints were found united in Mary. As the Abbot of Celles says to her: O Virgin, you have gathered into yourself the prerogatives of all the saints.
And so, as the splendor of the sun exceeds the splendor of all the stars together, so, says St. Basil, the glory of the divine Mother exceeds that of all the blessed. And St. Peter Damian adds that, as the light of the stars and of the moon vanishes, as though they were not, at the rising of the sun, so Mary in her glory so eclipses the splendor of men and angels that they almost seem not to appear in heaven. Hence St. Bernardine of Siena agrees with St. Bernard in asserting that the blessed share in part in the divine glory, but that the Virgin has in a certain manner been so enriched with it that it seems no creature could be more united to God than is Mary. This the Blessed Albert the Great confirms when he says that our Queen contemplates God very near—incomparably nearer than all the other celestial spirits. And St. Bernardine says further that, as the other planets are illumined by the sun, so all the blessed receive greater light and joy from the sight of Mary; and in another place he likewise asserts that the Mother of God, by ascending into heaven, increased the joy of all its inhabitants. Hence St. Peter Damian says that the blessed have no greater glory in heaven, after God, than to enjoy the presence of that most beautiful Queen: Summa gloria est post Deum te videre—“It is the highest glory, after God, to behold you.” And St. Bonaventure: Next to God, our greatest glory and our greatest joy is from Mary.
Let us rejoice, then, with Mary, in the exalted throne to which God has raised her in heaven. And let us rejoice also for our own sake; for if our Mother has ceased to be present with us by ascending in glory to heaven, she has not ceased to be present with us in her love. Indeed, being there nearer and more united to God, she knows our miseries the better, and therefore pities them the more, and is the better able to relieve us. And will you, O blessed Virgin—as St. Peter Damian asks—because you have been so exalted in heaven, forget us miserable creatures? No; God preserve us from the thought! A heart so merciful cannot but pity our miseries, which are so great. If the compassion of Mary for us was so great while she lived upon earth, far greater is it, says St. Bonaventure, in heaven, where she reigns.
Let us, then, give ourselves to the service of this Queen, to honor and love her as much as we can; for she is not, as Richard of St. Laurence says, like other rulers, who burden their subjects with taxes and exactions, but our Queen enriches her servants with graces, merits, and rewards. And let us pray to her with Guerric the Abbot: O Mother of mercy, you who sit so near to God, Queen of the world upon a throne so sublime, take your fill of the glory of your Jesus, and send to us your servants the fragments that remain. You now enjoy the banquet of the Lord; we who are still on earth, like the little dogs beneath the table, beg your pity.
Example
Father Silvanus Razzi relates that a devout cleric, who had a tender love for our Queen Mary, had heard her beauty so highly extolled that he ardently desired to see his Lady but once, and with humble prayers begged this favor. The kind Mother sent an angel to tell him that she would grant his wish and let him see her, but on this condition: that after seeing her he should become blind. The devout man accepted the condition. One day, behold, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him; and, that he might not be wholly blinded, he wished at first to look upon her with one eye only. But then, enamored of the great beauty of Mary, he wished to gaze upon her with both; and at that the Mother of God disappeared.
Having lost the presence of his Queen, he could not cease from weeping—not for the eye he had lost, but because he had not seen her with both. So he set himself again to entreat her to appear to him once more, and he no longer cared if he should lose the sight of his other eye and become entirely blind. “Happy and content, O my Lady,” he said, “I shall remain, if I am made wholly blind for so good a cause, which will leave me the more enamored of you and of your beauty.” Again Mary was pleased to grant his wish, and again she consoled him with her presence; but because this loving Queen can never do harm to anyone, when she appeared to him the second time, not only did she not take away his remaining eye, but she even restored to him the one he had lost.
Prayer
O great, exalted, and most glorious Lady, prostrate at the foot of your throne, we adore you from this valley of tears. We rejoice in the immense glory with which our Lord has enriched you. Now that you are indeed Queen of heaven and earth, ah, do not forget us, your poor servants. Do not disdain, from the lofty throne on which you reign, to turn your pitying eyes toward us miserable sinners. The nearer you are to the source of all graces, the more able you are to obtain them for us. In heaven you see our miseries more clearly; and therefore you must pity and relieve us the more. Make us your faithful servants on earth, that we may come to bless you in paradise. On this day, when you have been made Queen of the universe, we too consecrate ourselves to your service. In your great joy, console us also this day, by accepting us as your own.
You, then, are our Mother. Ah, most sweet Mother! Most loving Mother! Your altars are surrounded by many people who ask of you—one to be healed of some sickness, another to be relieved in his needs; one prays you for a good harvest, another for success in some lawsuit. We ask of you graces more pleasing to your heart. Obtain for us that we may be humble, detached from the earth, and resigned to the divine will. Obtain for us the holy love of God, a good death, and paradise. O Lady, change us from sinners into saints. Work this miracle, which will redound more to your honor than if you restored sight to a thousand blind, or raised a thousand from the dead. You are so powerful with God that it is enough to say you are his Mother, his best-beloved, full of his grace: what can he then deny you? O most lovely Queen, we do not presume to behold you on earth, but we long to go and see you in paradise; and you must obtain this for us. So we surely hope. Amen, amen.
Points for Reflection
1. “If we love this our Mother, we ought to congratulate ourselves more upon her glory than upon our own particular consolation.”
2. “If our Mother has ceased to be present with us by ascending in glory to heaven, she has not ceased to be present with us in her love.”
3. “Our Queen enriches her servants with graces, merits, and rewards.”