The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary concludes beautifully this year with the intense themes of the Sacred Liturgy for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost. The Collect of the Mass confesses before Almighty God the weakness of man and his need for God’s grace: “…because the frailty of man without You cannot but fall, keep us ever by Your help from all harmful things, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation.” The drama of our human freedom is here indicated, as the Epistle and the Gospel speak to us of the two kingdoms – of God and of Satan – between which we must choose on our way to salvation.

In the Epistle, St. Paul speaks to us frankly about the spiritual warfare into which we must enter in order to be saved. “The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, for these are contrary to one another,” he tells us. And Jesus, in our Gospel, makes this warfare even more explicit, teaching us that we cannot serve both God and Mammon, which is the pleasure and happiness and success of this world.

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On Saturday, the Church celebrates the Beheading of John the Baptist. This is a most poignant feast for our time, in which God’s law concerning marriage is so often broken and ignored. St. John the Baptist was martyred for defending God’s law concerning marriage and this makes him a great example and help to all in our time who undertake the same joyful task.
The story of John’s beheading begins with the sinful and invalid marriage of Herod the Tetrarch with Herodias, the lawful wife of Herod’s brother, Philip. Herod had divorced his own wife, whose name was Phasaelis. Herod, therefore, had committed adultery in entering into “marriage” with Herodias; neither he nor Herodias were free to marry. How many Catholics and non-Catholics in our time have committed this same sin and live in this same situation!

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The Octave of the Assumption, which we are celebrating now, culminates on Saturday with the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It’s beautiful that the Church honors our Mother’s glory by venerating especially her Heart. This veneration is the reason why August is traditionally called the Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This feast of Mary’s Heart is the octave feast 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 physical 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. As we saw last week, she had first suffered and died with Him in her Heart. We celebrate on August 22 that she has also risen with Him!

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On Saturday, the Church celebrates the great feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This celebration marks the day on which our Blessed Mother was raised from the dead and taken up in her glorified body into Heaven. This is a historical feast (meaning it happened on this day). The Church of Jerusalem commemorates her death on August 13 and celebrates a Marian Triduum leading up to the celebration of her resurrection on August 15. With this feast, we joyfully proclaim the truth of our Catholic faith that there are two glorified bodies in Heaven, that of Jesus and that of Mary!

The feast of the Assumption, then, is a kind of Marian Easter. It is a celebration of Blessed Mary’s office as the true disciple of Jesus Christ, the one who kept His Word perfectly and did His Will always. She is our great model and example in her discipleship and she receives the reward of her fidelity in her glorious resurrection and assumption into Heaven. In her glory, she is also an example to us, for we hope to follow her in receiving our own resurrection unto glory on the Last Day.

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