Thursday within the Octave of Pentecost

Dear students, dear faithful,

Today we are in the octave of Pentecost. The great feast of Pentecost is a feast unites both the Old and New Testaments, as it is on the day of Pentecost that the two laws were given. The first and ancient feast of the Old Testament celebrated the gift of the ten commandments to Moses fifty days after the liberation of the chosen people from slavery in Egypt. God wrote upon the two tables of stone the ten commandments, giving them to the people whom He would send His only Son, Our Lord. And Our Lord, having completed the will of His Father and ascended into heaven, sends the Holy Ghost who is Himself the New Law.

Whereas the Old Law was written upon tablets of stone, the New Law is written in our hearts by grace which flows from the Holy Ghost. Whereas in the Old Law there was the prescriptions of what to avoid, in the New Law there is rather the one prescription coming from Our Lord: be ye perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect [Mt. 6]. The Old Law was a law of death, as St. Paul says, putting to death the concupiscence in our members, whereas the New Law is a law of life, perfecting and lifting us up by grace. In the New Law Our Lord more than commands. He does more than just show us what to do by sanction and prescription. He becomes Himself the Law, the animating spirit of each of our actions when we are in the state of grace. When we become children of God by grace, we are moved by that same law that governed the acts of Our Lord. As Saint Paul says: because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father. [Gal 4,6]. The Holy Ghost is given to us as it is the Holy Ghost who is the Spirit of Our Lord [Rm 8,15], who gives testimony of Our Lord by vivifying each of our actions by grace. [Jn 15,26]

It is this grace of Our Lord that makes us pleasing to God, and not simply the following of the letter of the law. St. Paul will say: the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth [2 Cor 3,6]. This is so important to remember - the ten commandments, and any other prescription that is given to us by law or by edict - are not enough. Only grace can sanctify and bring us close to God. It is exactly in this respect that the Jews and especially the Pharisees are in error: the simple material observation of the commandments, even to the exact detail, cannot sanctify us. On the contrary, the only purpose for the prescriptions of the law is to safeguard this grace we receive from Our Lord [Rm 2,29; 7,6].

The New Law is not simply a codex of observances. It has a purpose, it has an end - it has even a life of its own as it gives to the observances the power of meriting eternal life.

These considerations bring us naturally to the final mystery of Our Lady, the last mystery that we will contemplate before next Monday when we will consecrate our school to Her Immaculate Heart. In a certain way it is most fitting that we see in the final glory of Our Lady the perfection we hope to obtain for the students of our school.

The mystery of the Assumption is profoundly related to this purity of Our Lady - since her body had never touched sin, and as her body was pure and Immaculate, it was unfitting that it should undergo the corruption of the tomb. God raised her to heaven as she is the Immaculate. We also see in this mystery the goal or purpose for which God made Her: that that woman whom He chose as His Mother should be happy for all eternity in heaven with Him.

In everything that we do we can speak of the intention, or rather the goal or end which we hope to achieve. In fact, when something reaches its end, it is complete, it is accomplished, it is done, it is perfect. When we look at it carefully, the end is the first thing that we desire. For instance we want to eat a cake - so we go to the store, buy the ingredients, make the cake and then we have our cake which we can eat. All those things are done because they lead us to the end, the cake. We want to go to the store because we want the cake - we wouldn’t go otherwise. Yet notice that the cake is the last thing we have. We have to do a lot of things in order to get the cake. The cake might be the first things we want to do, but we have to do many things in order to obtain this result. All the other things are what we call means, means to that end which we desire.

This is very important in the questions concerning education. We all want to be perfect. We all want to be adults, free and powerful and rich and whatever other ambitions we might have. Yet we must know that all things must be directed to our final end, that is to say, to happiness - perfect happiness which can only be found in that one perfect good which can only be God. Thus all that we study, all that we do, must be somehow in some manner directed towards this happiness. It is indeed the whole reason we are on this earth, to be happy - and this happiness can only come from that which is infinitely perfect, namely God.

Thus in our school we cannot make an abstraction of study and life. If we study physics, it is to be happy. If it is to study mathematics, it is to be with God. If we study history, it is to arrive at eternity someday. If we study art, it is to show the beauty of the Creator and His creation. In everything Jesus Christ must reign [I Cor 15,25]and must be the center, as He gives life and purpose to everything [1 Cor 10,5].

And thus Our Lady, assumed into Heaven, is a model of that final reason for education: she is glorified and happy for all eternity in Heaven. She obtained her end, her final destiny, a destiny that will also be ours if we are faithful to that grace given to us. We must always keep this in mind when we study, when we play, when we do whatever. Our Lady will always be there, in Heaven, to remind us of this.

We saw last week how Our Lady is our sorrowful mother. The action of Our Lady as educatrix in this aspect is much akin to her helping of Our Lord during the carrying of the Cross. We have seen that Our Lady is like any mother, and so for us, as children of God, she fulfills the office of mother in the spiritual life. She often has to correct us, to tell us to be careful, to stay away from dangerous things, like your mother does in the physical realm. Thus Our Lady, as the Sorrowful Mother, is often at the foot of the Cross in order to help us endure the difficulties of obtaining virtue.

Yet in this mystery, of her Assumption into Heaven, she takes on a particular aspect that is rather a sort of encouragement: she shows us the glory that is ours if we are faithful. She is rather pulling us towards success and perfection by her example and the reward which she fulfilled.

A mother in teaching a child to walk will firstly hold the child close to her knees, resting the child’s feet upon her feet and holding his hands in her hands, and whilst pulling his hands will slowly move the child forward on her own feet. Our Lady’s divine motherhood is much the same: we see in her all the virtues of Our Lord, and thus by imitating her we gradually learn to walk in the ways of salvation. She, by the fact that she stood beneath the Cross, can place our feet upon her example, can place our works into her hands, and by gently admonishing us can teach us how to carry the Cross in imitation of her Son.

Yet there will be a time when the child wants to walk by himself, to do it as an adult would do it, with his hands and feet untied, freely. And here the mother’s influence is still so important for the little child. Instead of taking his hands and feet she will stand a few steps away, and with words of encouragement draw the child to her. She will hold her arms open so the child can fall into them when he arrives at the end of his difficult first steps. So also Our Lady, being assumed into heaven, opens up her arms in a gesture of encouragement, in a loving embrace that will be complete when we at last arrive in her bosom. Our Lady in her Assumption is still a mother, yet a mother glorified and wishing rather that her children also merit freely, that they walk as children of God under their own initiative and power.

We, as children of God, must walk like children of God [Eph 5,8]. We must walk, like the child, under our own initiative and power. And yet heaven can seem so harsh and so far away when one is small and young. Our Lady in Her Glory, Assumed into heaven, is that dawn which welcomes the brightness of the day, the sun that is not harsh like the midday, but rather gentle and full of promise, the dawn that encourages as it enlightens and prepares the soul for the full splendor of eternity.

The Assumption of Our Lady also teaches us another mystery so important for our school: she is showing us the fullness and perfection of love. God so loved Our Lady that in a certain sense God couldn’t wait for the last day in order to bring her body and soul into heaven. The rest of humanity will likewise be glorified body and soul, but only on the Last Day and the Resurrection of the Dead. Yet God loves this woman so much that the great work of salvation, even eternal life in a certain sense, is not complete without her.

The very presence of a loved one is enough to make one happy. It is said that the greatest sign of a friendship is that one can simply be with one’s friend and not say anything - their presence is enough to nourish the soul and give encouragement to do good. On the contrary the possession of everything else, of money, wealth and power, are nothing without the presence of a person one deeply loves. So likewise heaven itself would seem to be missing something if Our Lady was not there body and soul to greet those souls entering the gates of heaven which had been closed for so long till the work of the Redemption had been accomplished.

What we see in the Gospels is exactly this presence of Our Lady at every instance of Our Lord’s life. We see her at Cana of Galilee and we see her at the foot of the Cross. Our Lady was there as that one person who loved Our Lord most, and whom Our Lord loved most deeply. Her very presence was enough to provoke His first miracle, and Her presence at the Cross allowed Him to say Consummatum est - it is consummated. Her presence in Heaven is also that encouragement for Him to say to each of us if we are faithful: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. [Mt 25,34].

And so too, my dear faithful, we can be sure that Our Lady is also at our side in our moments of difficulty, but she is also wanting us to walk as an adult. The work of education is difficult, it is truly a way of the Cross, a bearing of our earthly infirmities and imperfections. Humanly speaking education is truly impossible, considering the weakness of human nature and the effects of original sin. Yet Our Lady is there, with her arms outstretched, encouraging us, ready to embrace us, giving us by her love and example that strength to continue till we arrive at our heavenly glory if we but persevere.

And so, my dear friends, if there is only one fruit to be taken from these considerations, it is to remember the presence of Our Lady, to remember her glory, and to remember that we too can achieve this if we follow her example. If we live according to the grace of God, like she did, we too will be taken into Heaven, there to enjoy eternal happiness for ever and ever Amen.