Our Lady’s Pasch, and Ours
Although I love all parts of the Church’s calendar, the Feasts of the month of August liturgically have always been a favorite for me. Especially granted the “dog days” of summer are nestled almost precisely in the annual midpoint between the two Liturgical cycles surrounding Christmas and Easter, it’s easy to feel that we are slowly moving along directionless in the heat, until we hear the first notes of the ancient Creator Alme Siderum in I Vespers for the First Sunday of Advent.
However, some liturgical scholars and spiritual writers have been at pains to express the happy, even providential, coincidence of two Feast Days squarely in the month of August: first, the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, August 6th, which I argue is the most underrated Dominical Feast in the Roman Calendar. Second, there is the Assumption of Mary, which falls on August 15th. It should not strike us as odd that the Transfiguration thus falls eight days before the Vigil Mass of the Assumption. Some writers have called this an “Eastertide in Summer” or “Our Lady’s Pasch”, because there are rays of glory and jubilant alleluias in the bosom of the Church during these two feasts. Even the heavens themselves seem to celebrate, with the “Tears of St. Lawrence”, the Perseid Meteor Shower, providing most observers an ancient fireworks display around the Feast of that great Martyr-Deacon of Rome.
August 6th, as the liturgical commemoration of the Transfiguration, gives the Church a chance to sit on Mount Tabor a little longer than say, the 2nd Sunday of Lent, the other liturgical day when recall this event. In a sense, we are allowed to pitch our tents, as Peter, stupefied, had requested. We are permitted to contemplate the face of the glorified Christ without the austerity of the Cross and the Lenten season tempering our elation. We look, once again, at the exulted splendor of our Head. In eight days time, the Church will then begin to celebrate the glorification of the one who, above all, is the type, and foremost exemplar of divinized humanity: the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Theotokos.
We know from Biblical numerology, which the Church has inherited, that the number eight signifies eternity, while the number seven signifies perfection. To have one more than seven, in a sense, is to step outside the cycle of time, which is encapsulated in the account of the Seven Day Creation of the cosmos. This is not to say we have to accept this literally, but we certainly can, and I argue must, accept it analogically. Christ’s Resurrection, the Mother of all Feasts, is given an Octave, as is his Birth. Leaving aside the question of other octaves of ancient provenance that I believe should be restored, the Transfiguration and the Assumption form a natural octave.
The liturgical prayers surrounding the Feast of the Ascension and the Resurrection remind us constantly that where our Head has went, we as Church should earnestly desire to follow. The Assumption, as the Feast which so emphasizes the exultation of the greatest member of the Church, gives us a salutary reminder of that teaching.
One of the last mystery plays of Europe which is still preformed annually in Europe is the Misteri d’Elx, which takes place in the town of Elche (Elx in Valencian) in Eastern Spain. It is a drama with two parts: first, a reflection on the last days and falling asleep of the Blessed Virgin, and then secondly, her glorification, coronation, and intercessory role as Mother of the Church. It is a musically and visually stunning performance, which can be viewed on YouTube. What I find most poignant is how the Virgin’s last days on earth are depicted. To quote the old Valencian text,
Ay, trista vida corporal!
Oh mon crudel, tan desigual!
Trista de mi, yo, que fare?
Lo meu car fill, quan lo veure?
This lament, gorgeously set to music, says in English, “Ah, [how] sad is bodily life! Oh world so cruel, so unequal! How sad am I, and what shall I do? My dear son, when shall I see him?”
I seldom used to meditate upon the last days of Mary’s earthly life until I was doing research into this mystery play. Most written sources of the Assumption of Mary state that the Apostles were all present at her falling asleep. So if we take for granted that the first Apostle to be martyred, St. James “the Greater”, was martyred around 44 AD, then I think we can hypothesize reasonably that Mary was assumed between 33 and 44 AD. The thought of Mary’s ten or less earthly years with the Church is absolutely arresting. To think, she was so silent, that there is hardly any mention of her or her deeds, except in relation to Christ, in the Apostolic Fathers. We even have comparatively rare pseudopigraphical works! How much she could have divulged about his hidden life! How many anecdotes we could have had! Were the Apostles and Evangelists not curious at all? But Mary’s relative silence is completely understandable, if we consider that those Apostles, the first Priests, all were ordained and acted in persona Christi. She must have taken very seriously the words of Christ that “he who hears you, hears me, and he who hears me, hears the Father”. She also must have given complete deferential obedience to her Son who said that these utterly imperfect men were the approved witnesses to the life, death, and Resurrection of Christ. Mary’s influence looms like a giant mountain in the back of a landscape painting; silent, beautiful, and solid. Moreover, how much she must have lived afresh, day to day, the stance of Holy Saturday: the patient waiting for the reunion with her Son.
What does this say to us today? Firstly, we can see in Mary as Mother of the Church something of ourselves. We grasp with faith that Christ is Risen, yet we are in the waiting period before our own glorification. We occupy our time (hopefully) with good works and prayer, hoping to spread the Gospel. Secondly, I think we can grasp a secret to inner peace, which the Virgin Mary possessed; that even though life can often be cruel and burdensome, the Resurrection of Christ and the call to glory is being worked out in us each day, as St. Paul remarks in his 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians. A third reflection I think we can abstract is how much the Virgin Mary’s waiting is a rebuke to the obsessive ‘activism’ of modern times; that a person is not valuable unless they are doing something ‘productive’ for society. Working with the sick and the elderly, it is so common that we hear that some don’t know why God has them here in this world for as long as they are. Many have lost all their friends, and much of their family. The world has moved on without them. Mary, I suspect, felt similarly after the Ascension of her Son. Although I am sure she contemplated him in ways we can hardly imagine, Mary, like us, is a human being with a body. She yearned to be in his presence. I think the Assumption of Mary also speaks to us who have lost cherished companions in life, dear friends and family we hope to see again.
Just as we can truly say now, “Christ is Risen”, we may also say, “Mary is Risen”. They are the only two human natures that have been raised and glorified (we will pass over for the moment the ‘translations’ of Elijah and Enoch). And while Christ glorified is something extraordinary to behold, in Mary we have “our tainted nature’s solitary boast” similarly glorified. She is the spotless mirror, reflecting to us not only the glory of her Son, but also the image of what humanity is meant to become in Christ.
We see in the glorification of the Holy Mother of God our own future, should our fidelity by God’s grace hold firm. The Assumption reminds us that even as we walk, like she did, in the “in between” of Christ’s presence, now manifested primarily in the Sacred Mysteries, we most definitely have something to look forward to. And even though at times we may say with Mary, “Oh, how sad is this earthly life!” We may also say with the fourth century prayer, “Tota pulchra es, Maria!” How beautiful you are, Mary! That beauty will overcome the ugliness and cruelty of the world, for Our Lady’s Pasch is Ours as well.
