September is the Month of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, since we celebrate on September 15 the feast of the sufferings she endured in the culminating events of salvation history. The mystery of Our Lady’s suffering in union with her Son, our Savior, is most profound. It shines light also on the meaning our own sufferings can attain in imitation of her compassion with her Son.

In the first of her Sorrows, Our Mother receives the prophecy of Simeon that a “sword shall pierce” her own heart, even as her Son is to be “a sign that will be contradicted.” The piercing of the heart of Mary is at the center of the mystery of her suffering with Jesus. It was His Heart that was physically pierced by a sword at the Cross, after He had died. And yet Simeon prophesies that Mary’s heart will be pierced with His!

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On Thursday, the Church celebrates the feast day of the great Father of Western Theology, the Doctor of Grace, St. Augustine of Hippo. Augustine lived from 354 to 430 and is the author of the first autobiography in the history of the world, his Confessions, in which he gives the reader a glimpse into his own interior struggle to accept the freedom found in the Truth and Love of Jesus Christ.
St. Augustine is an important saint for our times for many reasons. Before his baptism by St. Ambrose in 387 at the age of 33, Augustine was mired in sins both of the mind and of the body. In addition to his famous struggles with his fallen sexuality, Augustine was a full-blown heretic, having fallen into the dualistic Gnostic religion of the Manicheans. In our time, with so much disorder of the mind and of the body, Augustine’s example of intellectual and moral conversion is deeply powerful and poignant.
The most interesting part of Augustine’s life, however, was not his struggle with error and sin, or even his conversion. We often make the mistake of thinking that drama is born from the struggle between good and evil. Rather, it is God alone Who truly fascinates us, and so a life lived for Him is the most interesting. The truly fascinating aspects of Augustine’s life center around the life of holiness and pastoral generosity he led for 35 years as the Bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa.

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August is traditionally called the Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, since the traditional feast of her Immaculate Heart is celebrated on August 22. This feast of Mary’s Heart is the octave of the feast of her Assumption into Heaven, which means the two feasts are connected in the logic of the Sacred Liturgy.

The truth of Mary’s Assumption means that her Heart is in Heaven, glorified in its resurrection and ascension in her Son. Mary is the first to share in her Son’s Resurrection and Ascension. She followed where He went first. Her Heart, which was always in Heaven by faith, hope, and love, is now in Heaven by glory.

Each Christian is invited by grace to this same sharing in Jesus’s Resurrection and Ascension. We are all called and empowered to live, like Mary, with our hearts already in Heaven by faith, hope, and charity, so that they can one day be in Heaven in glory. This is the key to happiness even in this life: to have our treasures and hearts already in the Heavenly happiness that never passes away.

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