“Beautiful as the Moon”(Cant.6:10)
“Who
is this that comes forth like the dawn, as beautiful as the moon, as
resplendent as the sun…” (Cant.6:10)? Who, indeed, is the Blessed Virgin
Mary? The Feast of the Assumption is a revelation of her true identity.
During Mary’s life on earth few understood. St. Louis Marie de Montfort comments:
“Because
Mary remained hidden during her life she is called by the Holy Spirit
and the Church ‘Alma Mater’, Mother hidden and unknown. So great was her
humility that she desired nothing more upon earth than to remain
unknown to herself and to others, and to be known only to God. In answer
to her prayers to remain hidden, poor and lowly, God was pleased to
conceal her from nearly every other human creature in her conception,
her birth, her life, her mysteries, her resurrection and assumption. Her
own parents did not really know her; and the angels would often ask one
another, ‘Who can she possibly be?’, for God had hidden her from them,
or if he did reveal anything to them, it was nothing compared with what
he withheld” (True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary).
At
the foot of the Cross, Mary was seen as a Sorrowful Mother, lamenting
the death of her only Son, as any mother would do. Who would now care
for her? The final act of Jesus from the Cross was to give her into the
care of the disciple John, to whom Jesus said, “Behold thy mother”
(Jn.19:27).
Some
years later, although no one knows the exact year, Mary closed her eyes
to this world and opened them in Heaven. She had spent most of those
years with John in Ephesus, where the site of her house has been
unearthed, but a strong tradition asserts that Mary died in Jerusalem,
where it is said her tomb was discovered. Tradition tells us that not
many days after her death, or her “Dormition,” her “falling asleep,” the
Apostles gathered to visit her tomb, but they found the tomb empty, and
realized that she had been assumed into Heaven. As in the case of her
Son, the tomb could not claim her. Free from sin, she was preserved from
the three-fold curse of Genesis (Gen 3:16-19), and would not suffer the
consequences of sin.
When
St. John stood at the foot of the Cross he perhaps did not realize the
significance of the word “Woman,” when he heard Jesus say to His Mother:
“Woman, behold thy son” (Jn.19:26). But many years later on the island
of Patmos, to which he had been exiled, John was given the glorious
vision of a Woman clothed with the sun, crowned with twelve stars, the
moon under her feet, and pursued by the Red Dragon (Apoc.12). The vision
fulfilled the prophecy from the Book of Genesis, when God addressed the
devil: “I will put enmity between you and the woman…” (Gen.3:15).
Who would have thought that the prophecy of St. John would be fulfilled in such a literal way in the year 2017? On September 23rd of
this year there will be an amazing configuration of stars and planets
in the constellation Virgo (the Virgin). The sun will enter that
constellation on September 16th.
The moon will be at the feet of the Virgin. Over her head will be
twelve “stars” (nine actual stars, and three planets, Venus, Mercury,
and Mars). And lurking below will be the serpent constellation, Hydra.
The planet Jupiter will have spent nine months within the womb area of
the figure, and will exit at that time. This describes exactly the sign
spoken of by St. John in the Apocalypse.
