Assumption: Commentary on The Reed of God - Part 4

Assumption. The Blessed Mother, in her fiat, gave us the opportunity to see the child Jesus, the man Jesus, Jesus himself, in everyone. Everyone. Not only in those we love or care about, not only in those who think like us, or act like us. Everyone.

Assumption – Commentary on the Reed of God Part Four

Table of Contents

Assumption

In this last part of the book, Houselander tells a very tender story about a woman who adopted a boy after her son had been killed in the war. “She gave him everything that her son had owned. There was no doubt of her love for him. There could be none for those who saw her face, whether-beaten and lined, marked and sealed with sorrow, and yet shining with quiet happiness.

One day a neighbor said to her: “I would never have thought that you would put another boy in your son’s place.”

“I have not she answered simply there is only one boy, Jesus Christ.”

A Challenge for All of Us

This is the challenge for all of us. It is not that the woman did not recognize the uniqueness of both her son who died and her adopted son. She did. But she recognized more deeply what it meant to be made in the image and likeness of God.

The Blessed Mother, in her fiat, gave us the opportunity to see the child Jesus, the man Jesus, Jesus himself, in everyone. Everyone. Not only in those we love or care about, not only in those who think like us, or act like us. Everyone.

And for this there is the Assumption. The Assumption is something so clear to Catholics that it must be so. The Assumption must be true because Mary must be in heaven with her Son. She must be in heaven still leading people on earth to her son.

A moment of crisis

We are at a moment of real crisis in our world. Much rides on what we do right now, today. “The survival of all that is worth the cost of a man’s blood depends upon how we foster the Christ life in the souls of the children, and not only in the children, but in all the reborn of any age.”

Yet on another level we are always in crisis because of the effects of sin. We continue to create brokenness. It is in this that the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary is so important.

For Mary, all of her life is fulfilled in the ultimate union with her son in heaven. She loved Him so much. She suffered with Him so much. But most of all she knew the deep and mysterious and inexpressible love that Jesus has for the whole world. This love of Jesus is the love or Mary. And this love can be ours too.

But first, we need to imitate Our Lady. We need to know we are empty until we are filled by God. We need to seek the Lost Jesus in our lives by searching for the Christ who dwells in all people. We need to pour ourselves out fully, to give ourselves totally, to be with Jesus in Heaven. And today it is complete. The Christ is born!

“Our Lady is in heaven.

On earth the breath of the spirit is stirring the young green corn. The song of the shepherd is heard in lambing time.

In heaven the music of the Incarnation is uttered eternally in its first simplicity.

The Mother has found the lost Child.

The empty Chalice is brimming with wine.

The Reed is filled with infinite music.

The Divine Little Bird is in His nest.”