“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars…” (Revelation, 12:1)

The Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady commemorates her passing from this earthly scene to be reunited for ever with her divine Son in Heaven.  So the saintly Bishop Ken wrote in one of his lovely hymns:

“Heaven with transcendent joys her entrance graced,
next to his throne her Son his Mother placed;
and here below, now she's of heaven possessed,
all generations are to call her blessed”. (1)

We honour her, therefore, not so much as she was but as she is now; not as someone who lived a pure and holy life in Northern Palestine long ago, but as one who is radiantly alive in Heaven as we sit here.

That is the attitude of mind with which we think of our own departed relatives and friends in Purgatory.  When we pray for them we may remember what they did and said and were like in this life, but our love and care for them belong to the present rather than the past.  For what separates us from them is not the years that have passed since we last saw them, but the veil of invisibility which hangs between this life and the next.

But so far as the Saints are concerned, there is the curious notion that, though they lived in the past and we may hope to see them in the future, yet so far as the present goes they have no existence – they have temporarily faded out.  The absurdity of such an idea is obvious when it is put into words.  The truth of the matter is, in fact, constantly kept before us by the Creed and by the Feasts and Festivals of the Church.

In the Creed we affirm our belief in the Communion of Saints, that is, in a real fellowship not only with our departed relatives and friends but also with the blessed Saints in Heaven.  That states the truth, and it is given a practical application in the Saints days throughout the year.  On those days we rejoice to honour Our Lord’s friends who are now with him.  As he himself has told us, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.  Whoever serves me, the Father will honour” (NRSV, John 12:26).  It would therefore indeed be remiss if we were to ignore our Christian brothers and sisters in Heaven who receive honour from the eternal God himself.

But there is one whose position is unique, not only among the Saints, but among all humankind, past, present and to come – and that is Our Lady, the Mother of him who is God.  He is for ever her Son.  She is for ever his Mother and from her he took his human nature.  In the words of the poet, John Keble,

“Thenceforth, Whom thousand worlds adore,
He calls thee Mother evermore;
Angel nor Saint His face may see
Apart from what He took of thee”. (2)

Being the Mother of the King of Kings, she is the first Lady in Heaven.  And just as on this earthly plane the first lady in the land here in the United Kingdom is Queen Elizabeth, so we rightly regard and honour Our Lady as Queen of Heaven, for no one has a position so exalted as hers.  This truth is depicted in famous paintings of the ‘Coronation of the Virgin’; for example, that by Rubens.

The honour which we give to Our Lady is no different, except in degree, from that which we give to any other human being.  We do not commit the idolatry of giving her that adoration which belongs to God alone.  We just acknowledge that she has a greater claim to be honoured and revered than has any human being.  In the words of John Keble’s hymn,

“Ave Maria! thou whose name
all but adoring love may claim…”. (3)

The best known and most widely used prayer to Our Lady is, of course, the Hail Mary, based on two passages from St Luke’s Gospel.  The first passage (Luke 1:28) is the Archangel Gabriel’s own salutation.  The second (Luke 1:42) is Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, 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”.

This prayer is also very popular in the Latin version, “Ave Maria”, which we hear sung on the radio or television by well-known stars to the familiar Bach-Gounod setting.

Since we honour Our Lady not only because of her holiness but primarily because of her unique relationship to Our Blessed Lord, we thereby honour him too.  Indeed, what dishonours him is deliberately to ignore, and have nothing to do with, the one person whom he constantly honours and loves above all others.

We should not think it a compliment to ourselves if a friend of ours were to cut our parents dead and never speak to them.  And I am sure no friend of Our Lord would have gone on like that at the wedding feast at Cana when Jesus and his Mother were there.  And no Christian should now, for the veil which hangs between this life and the next does not turn a friend into a stranger.  For all the time we claim to be friends of Our Lord, we must also be friends of his holy Mother.

References

1. Ken, T. (1637-1711) Her Virgin eyes saw God incarnate born.  Available from:
http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/h/h203.html (Accessed 04 August 2011) (Internet).

2. Keble, J. (1844) ‘Ave, gratia plena’ In Palgrave, F.T. (1890) (editor) The treasury of sacred song (CCCXXX), London: Henry Frowde.  Available from:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/palgrave/sacredsong.txt (Accessed 04 August 2011) (Internet).

3. Keble, J. (1792-1866) Ave Maria! blessed Maid!  Available from:
http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/a/a397.html (Accessed 04 August 2011) (Internet).