The Assumption
from Venerable Fulton J. Sheen
What the Ascension was to our Lord, that the Assumption is to our Lady. Certainly she, the new Garden of Paradise, in which grew the Lily of divine sinlessness and the red Rose of the Church, should not be delivered over and forgotten by the heavenly Gardener. She, in whose womb was celebrated the nuptials of eternity and time is more of eternity than time. If husband and wife in marriage are made two in one flesh, then shall not she, who is the new Eve of the new Adam, be also made two in one spirit with Him?
As Christ ascended into heaven to the unity of the divine nature, so Mary is assumed into heaven in the unity of Christ’s human nature. Her mystical flight is the event to which our whole generation moves.
Our age of carnalities, which loves the “body beautiful,” is lifted out of its despair by the Assumption, to honor a body that is beautiful because it is a temple of God, a gate through which the Word of heaven passed to earth, a Tower f Ivory up which climbed divine Love to kiss upon the lips of His Mother a mystic rose.
To this daughter of the new Eve goes up our prayer”
The celestial traitress play
And all mankind to bliss betray;
With sacrosanct cajoleries
And starry treachery of your eyes,
Tempt us back to Paradise.
Fourteenth Decade: from St. Louis De Montfort
We offer Thee, O Lord Jesus, this fourteenth decade in honor of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Thy holy and Blessed Mother, body and soul, into Heaven, and we ask of Thee, through these two mysteries and through her intercession, the gift of true devotion to her and to help us live and die holily.
One Our Father, ten Hail Marys, Glory be to the Father, Fatima Prayer…
Grace of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary, come down into my soul and make me truly devoted to her.