ASSUMPTION: SACRED UNION OF GOD-BEARER AND SON IN HEAVEN
Today the Church honours the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven (Luke 1:39-56).Jesus took up and received His Mother in the totality of her immaculate being, a joyous union of God-bearer and Son. Blessed Anne Catherine Emerich (1774-1824) was a Marian German visionary, and in her private revelations, claimed that Our Lady told her that her assumption occurred 12 years after the Crucifixion. Jesus was 33 years old then, which would make Mary 48 years old when she stood at the foot of the Cross, which made her 60 years of age when she was assumed up into heaven. The figure 12 has significant meaning in the bible, because it refers to the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 Apostles of Christ and the 12 year old Jesus, found in the Temple, going about His Father’s affairs (Lk 2:49). A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman (Mary), adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, with 12 stars on her head for a crown. She was pregnant and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth (Apoc 11:19). Mary is Queen of the Universe. Note how the cosmos surrenders to the will of God. The red dragon, in the same second reading, is Lucifer, who was once an archangel. In his fall from heaven, he brought a third of the rebellious angels with him, symbolised by his tail dragging a third of the stars from the sky. The seven heads and ten horns represent the seven deadly sins, and the ten deadly commandments, that Satan rules his angels and earthly agents by. These sinful commandments only bring death to the soul.
THE ROSARY IS A POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST DEATH
Because Satan wants to be a god, he tries to copy God in everything. He goes about trying to imitate everything in the Church by turning it into something bad. For example, he turns eternal life into eternal death. The 7 deadly sins go against the 7 Sacraments of the Church. He steals the theology of Mary, as the sinless human being, by convincing most of the world that they too are sinless. Satan the dragon, was waiting to eat the child, when Jesus was born, but the woman escaped to the desert (Apoc 12:10). This refers to Herod, who was possessed by Satan, when he tried to fool the Wisemen to return to him, after they found Jesus. Like the dragon, his intention was to devour Jesus by the sword (Matt 2:1-12). God intervened, when Joseph had a dream to flee to the desert in Egypt, with child and mother (Matt 2:13-15). We are told that the child was taken straight up to God and to His throne when born. From a spiritual point of view this would have occurred. As our Guardian Angels tend to us on earth, their presence is still fully felt in heaven, in a similar way that the divine Jesus and His throne was felt in heaven immediately after His birth. The devil knows his time will come to an end on earth, because the Saviour has arrived. Brought forth by the Woman, to defeat sin and death. Victory and Power and Empire forever have been won by our God, and all Authority for His Christ. Christ will overthrow Satan, the prince of death, leaving eternal life to capture the souls who want to live in heaven. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection, and an anticipation of the resurrection of the faithful. In Mary’s Magnificat, she proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and emphasises His Mercy three times, for those souls who fear Him. This means to fear the day of our own Judgement. However, the antidote to this fear is to repent for our sins in confession, and forgive those who trespass against us. Let us renew the recitation of the daily Rosary in our lives, if we have stopped praying it. God bless, Fr. Brendan.