Tending Our Houses Like Mary

When I was a kid, my mother – like many mothers – made us kids do chores around the house. These usually weren’t too demanding – dusting or vacuuming mostly – but we moaned and groaned about them as kids do. My siblings and I noticed that Mom always seemed particularly keen on having a clean house when company was coming over. Relatives from out of town, family or friends visiting, even the Terminix man – it didn’t really matter who was stopping by, the house needed to be immaculate.

And of course, it’s not just women who are like this. My dad was just as fastidious about the yard, if not more so. Of course, as I got older, I understood much better where they were coming from. The external setting of our lives – our homes, our lawns, our neighborhood – reflects something about ourselves. Where we live – and the condition it is in – says something about who we are.

The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin (c. 1432), Fra Angelico

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption – our belief in faith that at the end of Mary’s life, Jesus brought her body and soul into heaven. She who was the Ark of the New Covenant – the vessel which God had chosen from all time to bear his Incarnate Son into the world – was preserved from sin and from its every effect because of whom she bore. From Mary, Jesus receives his humanity; within Mary, Jesus first dwelt among us. Just like a house can tell us something about the person who lived there, so too can Mary reveal to us something about Jesus.

What do we learn? At least two important things:

First, we learn that the Risen Jesus can indeed save us from eternal death. Mary, conceived without sin and perfect throughout her life, was saved from any corruption or decay; but she is not the only one who is destined to live body and soul for all eternity. You and I are sinners, but Jesus also desires to bring us to himself in heaven, to raise us body and soul on the last day. What he has done for Mary is a promise of what he desires to do for us.

Second, from Mary, we learn something about the kind of disciple that Jesus wishes us to be. Mary bore Christ physically within herself, bringing him into this world – that was her vocation and her glory. You and I are charged with carrying the Lord in our hearts, bringing him to the world and those whom we encounter at each moment. The vocation to holy discipleship that we all share by virtue of our baptism goes far beyond merely believing in Jesus or following him in some abstract way – rather, he wishes us literally to bear him, to bring him to others in all that we do.

My friends, what is the state of our spiritual houses? Does our life on the outside – before family and friends and neighbors – reflect the presence of the One who is to be at the center of our existence, who is to dwell in our hearts? We can’t carry Christ to the world, as we are called to do, if we refuse to let him be the Master of our own spiritual home. Let us ask continually for the intercession of our Blessed Mother to open our hearts to the Lord, that he may reign always in our hearts here on earth, so that at the close of our lives, he may bring us too to the joys of his heavenly kingdom.