Italian
Jesus, ascending to heaven, had left His Mother to guide the nascent Church so that she could be a comfort to all. He left her as long as He saw her necessary to guide and soften the pains of the Apostles and the disciples, but as soon as He saw that her mission was accomplished, He made the words resound in her ear: Veni, mater mea: Veni, coronaberis (Come, my mother, come: you will be crowned).
Maria, who had so ardently desired to join her Divine Son in Paradise, had a surge: her virgin heart, flooded with new love and new hope, with a stronger heartbeat broke the fragile veil of the body that still held her soul prisoner on this earth and breathed out pure love of God. She was in Jerusalem and was buried in the Garden of Olives.
According to the Greek version of the apocryphal The Dormition, Mary received from the angel, on the Mount of Olives, a palm branch and the announcement that within three days she would leave her body, as she herself had asked Jesus, avoiding the experience of death.
At the passing of the Blessed Virgin, all the Apostles were present, except for Saint Thomas. But just as his lack of faith in the resurrection of Jesus had allowed him to put his hand in the Savior’s side, so now his absence was ordained by God so that the Apostles could witness the Assumption of the Virgin. Indeed, upon Thomas’s arrival, the Apostles gathered around him recounting the blessed passing of the Madonna, and when he expressed the desire to see her once more, even in the tomb, they all rejoiced because it also gave them the opportunity to renew their painful, yet loving farewell to the Mother. They then all went together to the tomb, but instead of the body of Mary, they found roses and lilies from which ineffable fragrances of Paradise emanated. Mary, the holy ark, the tabernacle of the Word made flesh, had been assumed into heaven by the Angels. This is the origin of today’s feast, which is one of the oldest in honor of the Blessed Virgin. The Assumption marks Mary’s triumphant entrance into heaven, her glorification, her crowning in the heavenly court.
The Tomb of Mary, at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, has been venerated since ancient times as the place from which the Virgin was assumed into heaven, and is now jointly maintained by Greek Orthodox and Armenians.
Mary triumphs today in heaven with the triple victory of her Son: Jesus has triumphed over sin, concupiscence, and death: and the Blessed Virgin, associated with the triumph of the Son, sings today of victory over sin for her immaculate conception; victory over concupiscence for her virginal motherhood; victory over death for her resurrection and glorious assumption into heaven.
“With her death, Mary, says St. John Damascene, gives glory to God by accepting the destruction of her being as a condition of the human nature created by Him; she earns great merits for herself by humbling herself to the point of annihilation; she gives us the example of the submission we must have to the Creator.” In addition to this, St. Alphonsus says that the Blessed Virgin accepted death also to imitate her Divine Son, who deigned to die for our love. Therefore, St. Bernardino of Siena, filled with joy for such a feast, commenting on the passage: Surge Domina, tu et arca sanctificationis tuae, cries out to the Lord:“Yes, O Jesus, may your Blessed Mother, sanctified by your conception, ascend to heaven as well.”
Thus, as Jesus is our Savior, Mary is the dispenser of graces; Jesus our mediator, and Mary our mediatrix; Jesus redeemer, Mary co-redemptrix; Jesus the way, the truth, the life, Mary our life, sweetness, and hope; Jesus and Mary, as they are united in their work for our salvation, are also united in heaven in the same immortal glory.
