Our Lady of the Assumption . . . or . . . Don't worry about anything any more, ever. Really!

It is very early on the morning of the Vigil of the Assumption as I write. Do you like my picture for the Feast? I'm taking all kinds of liberties  here today - I'm talking about the Feast of the Assumption as if it's here already (I think it is!), and I'm offering an image of Our Lady of Lourdes as if she's Our Lady of the Assumption (I think she is!). And as if these weren't enough, I'm hoping to finally convince you not to worry about anything any more, ever!

You can see I'm suffering from confusion or delusion or both, and either way I've got my work cut out for me. But no, I'm not planning on working on a feast day; I've decided the Holy Spirit must do everything, and no need for any of us to worry. (It would be counter productive for you to worry about how I will stop you from worrying, but again, let's leave that to God for whom all things are possible). We'll take these seemingly disparate but equally crazy ideas one at a time and see what He's got in store. Ready? Well don't worry if you aren't -  simply keep reading, mustard seed.

First, then, the Feast. Oh my Heavens! I love this Feast so very much, and I'll tell you why. (The joy of a blog: you can hardly stop me!)

Do you know Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets of the Portuguese? If not, let me recommend them. If so, let me remind you of their beauty.

Elizabeth had been a poet-invalid (not an invalid poet, which makes it sound like she couldn't find a rhyme to save her life, but in truth she was a really terrific poet who had to recline most of the time due to illness), when a letter reached her from one of her many admirers. This fan was different than most because he was a great poet himself, and no invalid (in either sense), and an eligible bachelor to boot. His motto might have been "Faint heart never won fair lady," because alongside Elizabeth's illness and the seclusion that accompanied it, there was a future father-in-law who was himself quite an obstacle to true love, but none of that daunted Robert Browning. Nor did the faithful cocker spaniel Flush, though I can't imagine he was hard to win over. Loving his mistress as he did, he would have wanted true love for her . . . and sure enough the hero and heroine of this romantic true life story took pup with them to Italy when they wed, so it was happiness all around.

But I do seem to be getting far afield, and I have so much on my heart today, so much the Holy Spirit and Our Blessed Mother would have me say to you, that I'd better get to it.

Ahem. Sonnet of the Portuguese #43.

How do I love thee (O Feast of the Assumption)?
Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of being and ideal grace. 
I love thee to the level of every day’s 
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for right; 
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 
I love thee with the passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death.

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Isn't that perfect? It absolutely is!
And don't worry about those "lost saints" in the third to last line. My lost saints were heroes without halos whom I gave up when I discovered the real Saints. I thank God for them (my lost saints) and ask Him to rest their souls, but the true Saints are forever found and finding us, and I hope that's what happened to Elizabeth too, so no need to worry that a sour note slipped into Elizabeth's lovely verses. No need to worry about anything any more ever, but we'll get to that soon enough.

First, again, how I love this Feast. To make a start in prose to supplement our poetry (because sometimes prose can be just a smidge clearer and more concrete), let me take another shot at why I love this Feast so much.

I love this Feast of the Assumption because it promises the fullness of Heaven to us. Our Lady is taken up body and soul to be with Jesus, and we will be too: taken up to Him at our earthly deaths, and eventually given our new improved glorified bodies that we might rejoice, like Our Lady and with Our Lady, in adoration and love and unity with the Blessed Trinity forever.

But I love this Feast even more for what it gives us now. After all, to children and the childlike, by very definition the future seems infinitely far away (even if it will be here in 5 minutes), and the removal of a mother, not to mention The Mother, from our home sounds like a terrible idea, doesn't it?

Well yes, usually, but not in the case of this mother; not in the case of Our Lady's Assumption. Because what occurred to me some years ago, what has made me love this feast with all my heart, is not the absence of Mary it would seem to imply, but the actual presence of Mary it makes possible. 

I've been blessed to witness (from some distance, it's true, but with the eyes and ears of faith, these distances were negligible) three friends depart this life for heaven. All three of them were parents of young children. Two were mothers, one a father (I've written lately of the father in "The Veil is Thin") and while all three left willingly because they yearned to see God, all three also left unwilling to abandon their families. Fortunately they knew where they were going and how close they could remain, in God, to those they loved on earth. I've seen the signs of their continued care for their children, and in Our Blessed Mother, we see those signs multiplied and, to use a familiar Marian word, magnified.

Our Lady's assumption into Heaven seemed to take her away. Certainly for the Apostles it was "now you see me, now you don't," just like it had been with Our Lord's Ascension. But we who are blessed to believe without seeing are given much more vision, or we might say many more visions, of her love and continued care for us.

We call them apparitions, and you'd think Our Lady, once she'd discovered the trick of her personal version of bilocation, just couldn't get enough. She's like the child who's figured out how to ride a bike without training wheels, and no fall of night will stop her from riding up and down the driveway, up and down the street, in full view of all the neighbors who share in her joy and delight at her rapid appearance at first one end of the street and then the other.

How do I love thee, O Blessed Virgin Mary? Let me count the ways:
I love thee at Guadalupe, at Lourdes, at Fatima, at Kibeho.
I love thee at Knock, at Aylesford, and at Zeitoun, Egypt.
I love thee at Soufenieh and Mount Carmel, at Akita and Betania.

I love you, dear Mother, wherever you have deigned to appear to reassure us that you have not, will not, could not ever forget us.

And sometimes, though I often forget I'm wearing my Miraculous Medal, yet sometimes when I do remember, I love thee most especially in the Rue de Bac, for it was there you stroked dear St. Catherine Laboure's hair while she rested her head in your lap as you sat in a chair in her church. You could hardly have done that if you weren't assumed into Heaven!

But most of all, O sweet Mary, Mother of God and our Mother too, do I love you in Hanoi, with Marcel and little Jesus and little Therese. I love you telling Marcel - and thereby telling the rest of us - that you're having difficulty cleaning his room (our rooms) - the room of his soul (our souls) filled with the cobwebs of worry, but you're not giving up because what's a mom to do but sweep and sweep until the room is clean?

Which is why (because she's so near in her apparitions, her insistence on "coming down" which Therese imitates when her own departure has seemed to take her away from her spiritual children) I think the picture of Our Lady of Lourdes up top of this post is perfect for this Feast of the Assumption.

Which Feast is, technically, not here yet as I write, but to dispatch my seeming illusion (or confusion #2, above) let me say that just as I've explained previously here on the occasion of the great Feast of My Birth, the Church gives us novenas, vigils, triduums, and octaves for a reason. Namely, because this really would be a valley of tears if we didn't celebrate every possible moment! 

You can tell yourself, then, that I'm looney as a hoot owl (are they looney?) or looney as a toon (Daffy Duck being my model and exemplar in so many ways, you can't argue with me here), but I'm also like the child who, having counted down the days till Christmas, is thrilled to pieces that Christmas Eve is finally here - even if it's only 6 a.m. on Christmas Eve morning! Or in this case, the Vigil of the Assumption . . . 

There's also the untimely Internet reality of the published post. Who knows when you'll be reading this? We'll take the long view and say that any and every Feast of the Liturgical Year is available to us at every and any moment for our delectation and delight. And so, let's delight in Our Lady's Assumption, knowing as we do (ah, the joy of being the cognoscenti!) that she is nearer to us than ever she was when she lived in the Holy Land and was contained in just one geographic region. Isn't the power and providence of God, which He shares so generously with His angels and Saints, and most wonderfully with the handmaiden He chose to be His Mother, completely awesome?

That's two down (two of my confusions turned to clarity like dross to gold with Midas' touch), but there is that third challenge I've set myself, looking like a third delusion remaining. I am now going to convince you to stop worrying any more about anything, ever.

Ever?

Well at least for a few minutes, and then Marcel-like, you can revisit the truth and let me remind you again whenever you need reminding. Forget about a few minutes; you'll probably need reminding about every 20 seconds or so, if you're anything like me. But the good news will be here, eternal-like in true Internet fashion. And again, it isn't really me who can convince you, but the Holy Spirit is up to the task, so let's see what He's got for us.

We'll start with words much more effective than mine could ever be. We'll start, in honor of the Feast, with Our Lady assumed into Heaven, who I'm guessing found it wasn't Heaven for her unless the least of her children knew the extent of her love, her maternal care, her devoted attention and everlasting compassion. The result? Her words to St. Juan Diego, her little Juanito, her Juan Diegito, to whom she confided what she expects from us. Nothing less than total confidence, rest in her motherly embrace, and no worrying whatsoever. She said (and says):

Hear and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one:
Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you.
Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance.
Am I not here who am your Mother?
Are you not under my shadow and protection?
Am I not your fountain of life?
Are you not in the folds of my mantle?
In the crossing of my arms?
Is there anything else that you need?
Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.

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You know you're dealing with a lunatic (me, that is) when instead of the post ending right smack dab at the conclusion of those words from Our Lady, someone (hehe) continues writing.

What can I say? Our Lady didn't stop talking, and I'm not ready to either. She's repeated herself many times since she said those most perfect and not-to-be-improved-upon words to Juan Diegito, and I can only follow her lead.

Take, for instance, the words she spoke four hundred and fifteen years after that convo with St. Juan. You may or may not be familiar with the words I'm about to transcribe (how I love my job as a little secretary!!!), depending on whether her Conversations with Marcel Van have become your constant reading yet. No matter - if you've heard these words before, you'll enjoy hearing them again. If this is new to you, I can only say thanks be to God you're here now to listen for the first time. 

You see, in 1946 in the Redemptorist house in Hanoi, Vietnam, Our Lady was kind enough to repeat what she'd said to Juanito in conversations with her little Marcelito. I don't know if Marcel knew of her words to Juan Diego, but I'm sure he would've loved them if he did know them. What's marvelous is that it didn't matter whether he knew her words to Juan Diego or not because Our Lady told our little brother Marcel every single thing he needed to hear from her, and some of it was really close to what she had said to St. Juan Diego. Here, for example, is what she said to little one #2 (Marcel) in January of 1946, as he recorded in Conversations (249):

Mary: Marcel, my child, I acknowledge you as my child, my dear child. Love me. Do you understand? Marcel, I, your Mother, I love you and I have pity on you more than I love and take pity on little Jesus. Towards little Jesus my heart feels only love while towards you it feels love and pity. Only little Jesus can be loved purely and simply; as for you, you can only be loved with a love mixed with pity. My dear child, nothing is sweeter to me than to hear you call me your Mother. Yes, truly, I am your Mother, and nothing pleases me as much as to note that you really love me with a simple and sincere heart. I acknowledge you as my dear child. I carry you in my arms. I offer you to little Jesus and He will consume you in the fire of love, so that my hands will be like the sacrificial altar while you, following the example of little Therese of the Child Jesus, will be the holocaust victim offered in love and this holocaust, little Jesus will accept. My dear child, what happiness can equal yours?

Marcel: But, dear Mother, what will my sister Therese be to me?

Mary: She will be your sister, she will take you in her arms to place you on my knees with little Jesus, and with you she will tell stories to little Jesus.

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In a passage I adore because of Marcel's two feet which stuck out from below Our Lady's cloak, we hear these words which she spoke to him, as he reports in (243b) and (244):

Marcel: During the Salve . . . Mary gave me a kiss, then, drawing me towards her, she wrapped me in her cloak while saying: 'In spite of sufferings, you will always remain sheltered under my cloak, in company with little Jesus. You have nothing to fear. It is my cloak, also, which will collect your tears.' I saw nothing more then than my two feet which stuck out from below the cloak. And during the Angelus I no longer saw anything.

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I think that if Our Lady has given us one message to hold onto, it's that she is holding onto us. We are wrapped in her mantle, held close in her cloak, kissed by her, loved by her with all the affection of the most perfect creature God ever made. We forget this because we get so distracted, but don't worry about that. She loves to hold us and she won't forget us even if we forget her. Not that we will forget her for long - we've got lovely feasts like the Assumption to remind us of her. And I hope that this time when the Feast of the Assumption reminds you of Mother Mary, it will remind you as it reminds me that she who was once in Galilee is now able to be with us anywhere and everywhere we are.

May she be with you today and forever, mothering you, wiping away your tears, listening to your little stories, and repeating to you much more effectively than I can: 

Hear and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one:
Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you.
Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance.
Am I not here who am your Mother?
Are you not under my shadow and protection?
Am I not your fountain of life?
Are you not in the folds of my mantle?
In the crossing of my arms?
Is there anything else that you need?
Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.

Until we meet again, let's repeat our own special words to Jesus and remind Him of His job (just in case He's distracted by the beauty of His Mother Mary in Heaven beside Him):

Draw me, we will run!