Every time a Great Feast rolls round I thank God for the huge Gift of the Holy Rosary. For it has been the Rosary, like a gentle Mother with the Wisdom of Heaven who has taught me all I know of these Great Mysteries. For if Mary is the Great Temple of the Holy Spirit each Mystery of the Rosary is the Window that enables us to gaze within. I remember many years ago attending mass in a tiny oratory chapel were a young recently ordained priest officiated, the rest being young religious. However there was one lay lady present whom I happened to know had a huge devotion to the Rosary. In fact she reminded me of my grandmother and the Rosary was pretty much part of her hand. It was never out of it. It was the Feast of the Mother of God and towards the end of mass the young priest asked anyone who had any thoughts on Our Lady to speak. Everyone went quiet but the lady suddenly rose to speak and everyone was astonished an delighted by the depths of Wisdom that poured out. The priest told me later he had never heard anyone speak like that before on Mary. But to me that answer was clear, it was the Rosary. Mary is the Temple of the Holy Spirit and the Decades of the Rosary the Windows which enable us to look in
I think one insight that really has helped me very much in Marian Devotion is that where Mary goes we are meant to follow. So that in terms of the Assumption , where Mary went Body and Soul we are meant to follow some day at the Resurrection. This is always a huge source of Joy; that we follow so closely in her foot steps as her children.
I attended Mass on the feast of the Assumption in the early 90's at a neighbouring parish run by an order of priests and brothers. The senior priest at the parish said Mass. His homily began something along the lines of, 'I think that the Protestants have a point about us making too much fuss about Mary....' He went on to say that whereas the Protestants ordained women and so showed that they were unafraid of the feminine aspect of religion, we failed to do that and pretended to make up for the fact by idolising Mary etc. etc. This priest was a warm, intelligent, friendly and popular priest which made his comments even worse in my view as some/many in the congregation would just accept his words as fact. Coincidentally, I had just finished reading a book by a convert from Evangelical Protestantism who was led to the Church by an interest in Our Lady. He said that, when he was a child, he frequently heard stories in Church and Sunday School about the heroines of the Old Testament and, occasionally, about some of the females mentioned in the New Testament but no-one ever mentioned Mary except perhaps at Christmas. He queried this with his mother who said that Mary was 'just an ordinary woman' and that the Catholics worshipped Her and had statues of Her. Even as a child he rejected this believing that, if she was considered good enough to be mother to the Son of God, that she was more special than all the other women in the Bible put together and pointed out to his mother that, at Christmas, even their Church had a statue of Mary in Church alongside statues of Baby Jesus, Joseph and the shepherds in the crib. His mother had no answer to the last point. As he grew up, he did some research and discovered that Catholics didn't worship Our Lady but venerated Her as, he considered, She deserved. He figured that if the Catholics were right about Mary, they might be right about other aspects of religion and, eventually, became a Catholic. I marked the contrast between the little Protestant boy and the middle aged Catholic priest's attitude to Our Lady and wrote to the priest pointing out this contrast and the irony of it. He did not reply but, a couple of years later, left the priesthood to marry a lady from the parish. I'm no prophet but it came as no surprise. Once they start showing disrespect to Our Lady, it is a worrying indicator of their spiritual condition.
Love of Our Lady and the Holy Rosary is such a huge hammer to heresy. Forhow can we avoid and combat heresy if we don;t see it. Mary opens our eyes. Heretics hate Our Lady and her Feasts. If you want to know the very heart of a priest or Bishop listen to his homily on a Feast like that of the Assumption. It tells all...
I always have a funny mental picture when I think of the Assumption of Our LAdy going up to heaven in an elevator. It makes me smile. Another thing heretics can never talk about is the Eucharist; it makes them squirm. The Eucharist and Our Lady aretheir bug bears.
When Therese was 13, I believe, she experienced her first ride in an elevator. It became an image for her "Little Way". Arduous, but direct and quick! Safe amongst falling roses!
They were very advanced in France. I don;t think they were seen in Ireland till much , much later. I read one time that when her father took her to Rome to meet the Pope she noticed how withdrawn and prayerful he was from the other pilgrims, he kept a kind of wise distance from arguments and disputes. What a wise holy man. For him it was , it really was a pilrimage. How much St Therese must have learnt from her father just to watch him.
One thing the Assumption always reminds me of in mind blowing Fashion is the importance of the Body in the Spiritual Life. On how the Body affects prayer and how prayer affects the Body. That we are not just Body and not just Soul , that we are both Body and Soul. So for instance to kneel when receiving or at least around the time we receive the Eucharist is a big help; that the Body is doing what the soul is doing and bowing in prostration before it's Divine Guest. But one thing I really, really noticed after my conversion was the effect that Grace was having on Body. I felt so light and full of life, bursting with heath and energy. New Born. I still feel that especially after receiving the Eucharist. Like I am walking on air..and oh...the joy, the joy the joy!! We see this in the stories of the saints often. Tey go flying through the air. They shine with Light. They are in several places at the one time. Their Bodies remain incorrupt. They even smell of heaven. Like st Seraphim of Sarov whose face shone with Light.
