This short reflection was inspired by John Paul II’s Wednesday audience on Psalm 44, “Listen, O daughter!”1 The liturgical celebration of the Assumption of our Blessed Mother into Heaven took place a few days ago on August 15. Precisely, just in the middle of the month, her Solemnity stands, or so it should, as a summit… and as a beacon of hope of our future resurrection and entering in the presence of God.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo2
Psalm 45 [44]
Psalm 45[44] unfolds a further horizon besides that of a joyful nuptial song. John Paul II says that “the Psalmist’s insistence in exalting the woman is important: she is “clothed with splendor” (v. 14), and this magnificence is illustrated by her wedding robes, woven of gold and richly embroidered (cf. vv. 14-15). The Bible loves beauty as a reflection of God’s splendor; even clothing can be raised to a sign of dazzling inner light and purity of soul.”
The portrait of this queen was applied to Mary by many Church Fathers “from the very first words of the appeal: “Listen, O daughter, give ear…” (v. 11). Chrysippus of Jerusalem writes,
“My discourse is addressed to you,” he says, turning to Mary, “to you who must go as bride to the great sovereign; to you I address my discourse, to you who are about to conceive the Word of God in the way that he knows…. “Listen, O daughter, give ear to my words”; indeed, the auspicious announcement of the world’s redemption is coming true. Listen, and what you will hear will gladden your heart… “Forget your own people and your father’s house”: pay no attention to your earthly parents, for you will be transformed into a heavenly queen. And “listen,” he says, “to how much the One who is Creator and Lord of all things loves you.” Indeed, the “king … will desire your beauty”; the Father himself will take you as bride; the Holy Spirit will arrange all the conditions that are necessary for these nuptials… Do not believe you will give birth to a human child, “for he is your Lord and you will adore him.” Your Creator has become your child; you will conceive and with all the others, you will worship him as your Lord.”
The Assumption of Mary is a reminder of our calling to the heavenly dignity. The nuptials God has made with humanity in his Son through the Incarnation, find in Mary a worthy example of the nuptials of God with each one of us. Christ rose from the dead, and Mary was taken into Heaven as a paradigm of an uncorrupted life, of a soul without a trace of sin, a living example of our dignity of children of God called to Heaven.
I take the liberty to include a poem on the Assumption from my book Desde Fossanova, written in Spanish:3
Asunción de la Virgen
“Y elevando los ojos al Cielo…”
(Plegaria Eucarística I)4
Cual si mirase Dios eternamente
en su espejo de belleza infinita,
y sin pares una Madre imagina
para Sí, será Asunta y Purísima.
Da a luz sin el tiempo el Eterno
a su Madre, de barro y de lirios,
y sin mancha que rompa el espejo
virginal que dará cuna al Hijo.
Y en un vuelo tan suave de partos
sin dolor y sin llantos de niño
ya concibe la Niña el retoño
más hermoso que nunca se ha visto.
Se regresa el Arcángel enviado
con premura de eternos suspiros
para dar a los Tres el anuncio
que esta Virgen les ha concebido.
Y volviendo sus ojos angélicos
hacia el “Cielo” dejado en la tierra
balbuceos tropiezan sus labios
que éste, Cielo no fuera sin Ella,
que esta Madre es un trozo del Cielo
y la tierra es un Cielo con Ella,
y que el Cielo no es Cielo si falta
a su Dios su creatura más bella.
Y de gozo impaciente sin tiempo regocíjase a una el Dios Trino
pues no ve ya el momento que ascienda
a los Cielos la Madre que Él hizo.
Regocíjase en tres el Dios Uno
cuyo Hijo de Reyes es Rey,
y corona a su Madre, cual Reina
que hoy el Cielo (se) ha puesto a sus pies.
God bless you all.
1 https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/2004/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_20041006.html. Accessed August 14, 2022.
2 https://www.christianiconography.info/Wikimedia%20Commons/assumptionMurillo.html. Accessed August 14, 2022.
3 Marcelo J. Navarro Muñoz, Desde Fossanova (Chillum, MD: IVE Press, 2022), 136-37.
4 Un hermoso retablo en la capilla del segundo piso en el Santuario de Mariahilfberg, Neumarkt (Bavaria) muestra a Nuestra Señora Asunta al Cielo y siendo coronada. El pensamiento surgió al pronunciar estas palabras de la Plegaria Eucarística I, y al elevar los ojos se ve a nuestra Madre que, en sentido acomodaticio, es también “nuestro Cielo”.
Thank you for this poem of heaven – our piece of heaven in our Mother’s eyes.
(I am so grateful that her feet ever touched the earth).