The Fruit of the Assumption: The Grace of a Happy Death
The mystery the Assumption sets before us the horizon of eternity. Having completed her earthly pilgrimage, Mary was lifted body and soul into the glory of Paradise. She who was conceived without sin could not experience sin’s consequence – the grave’s material corruption. Her risen Son was pleased to glorify her body at once. The Assumption of our heavenly Mother prefigures the resurrection of the body that will one day be the glory of all the faithful.
The moment of our death is the most decisive moment of our life. Our choice for or against God as we breathe our last seals our destiny forever. That determination becomes immortalized as the weight of our lives hangs in the balance of the Mercy and Justice of God. After our judgment, we will enter into indescribable bliss in God’s presence or inconceivable despair in His absence. For this reason, the refrain of our Hail Mary’s implores our heavenly Mother to “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death”.
Through a special grace of the Divine Mercy, salvation can break into a soul like a thief in one’s final moments; but death can also arrive like a thief that breaks into our lives at an unexpected – and unprepared – hour (cf. Lk 12:39-40). Our Saviour therefore exhorts us to keep the lamps of our faith burning. Our determination for God should come as the final fiat of a lifetime of yeses to the will of the Lord. By setting our eyes on heavenly things we dispose ourselves to the grace of a happy death.
So many, however, fail to raise their vision to the vistas of eternal life! Our culture suffers from a spiritual nearsightedness that blurs everything but the myopia of the here and now. For example, more and more people notice with dismay the deepening furrows on our brow and turn to Botox to reverse the effects of time… but do they consider that in a few short years their bodies will lie six feet under, and their glorified bodies will be resplendent only in proportion to their virtues? I recently attended a high-end wedding, and was struck by the amount of preparation typical of the women in attendance: new gowns with the necessary alterations, matching shoes, jewellery and accessories, manicures and pedicures, facials, hair removal, professional hairdos, and makeup. Everyone wanted to be ready for the big day… yet how much effort do we put into getting ready for the big day of our death? How much more should go into adorning our souls for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb than adorning our bodies for an earthly wedding, which is but a sign of this eternal reality!
Mary lived with her eyes firmly fixed on the horizon of eternity. Her eternal perspective enabled her to stand in the shadow of the Cross in unwavering faith. After Jesus ascended into Heaven, Mary braved the separation of remaining with the early Church to mother it, ever the obedient handmaid. Yearning to be with her beloved Son again, she must have longed for death with holy longing, but she understood that her earthly life was but a brief exile.
The problem today is that we don’t see this world as an exile. Our culture’s secular materialism has eclipsed the horizon of eternity, leading people to seek their ultimate fulfillment in the present world – a world in which it cannot be found. As a result, so many suffer disillusionment if not despair. One’s career, for example, is often viewed as the primary vehicle for one’s self-actualization. Many young people, disappointed that their jobs fail to yield the personal satisfaction they envisioned, engage in job hopping, always on the lookout for more meaningful and gratifying work. They fail to understand that the lasting value of human work lies less in what one does than in the love with which it is done, for the Kingdom of God is a kingdom built by charity. Similarly, countless marriages end in divorce when spouses realize that the other cannot provide the all-encompassing fulfillment they imagined on their wedding day. They naïvely expected the other to be their completion, not realizing that only the Divine Lover can quench the deepest thirst of the human heart.
Everything in our Faith foretells a fulfillment yet to come: being home at last in the house of our Father. The Eucharist is the foretaste this fulfillment. After Jesus returned to the Father, the Eucharist was Our Lady’s consolation, which gave her strength to walk the remaining steps of her earthly pilgrimage. Likewise, the Eucharist is the manna that sustains us in our desert wanderings as we anticipate the Promised Land of Heaven. May we, like Mary, remain close to the Blessed Sacrament and receive, through her, the grace of a happy death.
