And when he was dead and she laid his lifeless body in the tomb it was as though part of her very self had gone.  And that sense of loss must have persisted in a measure after his Resurrection and Ascension.  For she and he were so closely linked, not only in God’s sublime plan for the salvation of mankind but also in human companionship, that life without his visible Presence could not fail to be incomplete.

But the parting was not for long.  Within a few years she died and was taken up body and soul to Heaven to be reunited with her Son.  And there they are at this very moment together, the Mother and her Son, inseparable for evermore.  In the words of the hymn:

“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”. (2)