Thought for the Day – 19 August – On the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
By Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890)
Blessed Newman says it begins with who Mary: “As soon as we apprehend by faith, the great fundamental truth, that Mary is the Mother of God, other wonderful truths follow in its train and one of these, is that, she was exempt from the ordinary lot of mortals, which is not only to die but to become earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Mary receives honour because of who her Son is – our only Lord and Saviour and from His victory over sin and death, Mary is blessed with this gift.
Yet, Mary was not the first or the only one to have her body preserved from corruption. Blessed Newman quotes St Matthew, who reports that bodies of the saints came out of the tombs following our Lord’s resurrection. “Can we suppose that Abraham, or David, or Isaias, or Ezechias, should have been thus favoured and not God’s own Mother?…Was she not nearer to Him than the greatest of the Saints before her? Therefore we confidently say that our Lord, having preserved her from sin and the consequences of sin…lost no time, in pouring out the full merits, of that Passion upon her body as well as her soul.”
We, too, want to be more fully conformed to our Lord, just as our Lady is and to be in Heaven as she is united with the Object of our love. She will help us bring to Him the little that we have and to rely on Him, as she did. She is the Mother of our Lord and she is our Mother too.
Let us go to her today and, with confidence, to our Heavenly Father, who never fails to honour and bless those who surrender to Him.
AnaStpaul 