The Queen of All Saints

One of the things I love most about our Catholic faith is that it is truly universal. The Catholic Church has reached all corners of the world such that, no matter where you go, you can find evidence of our elder brothers and sisters in the faith, the saints. For example, in Italy, you can venerate the relics of countless saints, including St. Peter, St. Benedict, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Catherine of Siena. In India, many people make pilgrimage to the tombs of St. Thomas the Apostle and St. Francis Xavier. In Africa, you can visit the shrines of St. Charles Lwanga and his fellow martyrs in Uganda, of Bl. Benedict Daswa in South Africa, and of Bl. Cyprian Tansi in Nigeria. And here in the western hemisphere, there are the tombs of St. Martin de Porres and St. Rose of Lima in Peru; St. Jose Sanchez del Rio and Bl. Miguel Pro in Mexico; and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Katherine Drexel, and St. John Neumann right here in the United States.

All of these saints, and every saint in heaven, gave glory to God by the way they lived and died. And since the earliest days of the Church, Christians have had their own faith strengthened by honoring and venerating the mortal bodies of those saintly men and women who came before them. But there’s one saint for whom we *can’t* do this. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is the greatest of the saints – we call her the Queen of All Saints. And yet, there is no church or shrine that claims to have any of her relics. In all of our two-thousand-year history, there has never been a tradition of Christians venerating her bones or mortal remains.

And that is because, as we celebrate today, Mary’s body is *not* here on earth but in heaven. Our faith teaches that, at the close of her life, not only Mary’s soul but also her body entered heaven, and thus she was preserved from the corruption of death. The mortal fragility of our bodies, as well as the fact that our mortal bodies decompose after we pass away, is a result of human sinfulness. But because Mary was conceived immaculately, and thus preserved from all stain of sin, it was fitting that she would not be subject to the corruption of death. And, as our Church has solemnly defined, her Immaculate Conception resulted in the Assumption of her body and soul into heaven at the close of her earthly life.

 

Jerónimo Jacinto de Espinosa, The Adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist (c. 1650) 

So, why does this matter for us? For at least two reasons. First, it tells us what we believe about the Mother of God. All of the saints in heaven are, as I said before, our elder brothers and sisters in the faith; all of them can help us here on earth, not only by their example but also by their intercession for us. But above all, Mary can help us because she enjoys the fullness of the Resurrected human life, just as Jesus enjoys it. The other saints in heaven? They are perfectly happy, since they behold God face to face. But in a certain sense they are also incomplete, since their souls are still awaiting final reunion with their bodies; like us, they look forward also to the Resurrection, when their earthly bodies will be resurrected and glorified to join their beatified souls. Mary, on the other hand, already enjoys the fullness of that blessed reality. Because God has crowned her with the fullness of every possible blessing, she is able to intercede for us in the fullest possible way.

The second reason today’s solemnity is important is that shows us the final end of our faith – what God wants for all persons who believe in his Son. Mary is the Mother of Jesus but she is also the disciple par excellence, and by means of the blessings she received – in this life and especially in the life to come – she shows us what God intends for every disciple of Jesus. In her, we see that our faith is not just a nice idea – something to give us comfort in difficult moments but which isn’t really true – and certainly not a luxury, something that is beneficial to have but which can be left aside when it’s inconvenient. No, our faith is the most absolutely essential, life-or-death thing that we have; it is what really will save us, not just our souls but our bodies too. We see in Mary what God’s final purpose is for our human lives: to dwell with him in heaven, in the fullness of our human life, body and soul. What we hope for is something far greater than to be angels, because angels do not have bodies. We hope to be like Mary – beholding God, worshiping him with our souls and our bodies, in perfect happiness forever.

Friends, if we weren’t celebrating today’s feast we would have heard today these words of Jesus in the Gospel: “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” Because we come here to partake of the Lord's Body and Blood, we can therefore await with firm hope and eager joy that Day of Resurrection which Mary now enjoys. For on that Day, our bodies and the bodies of all the saints, from wherever they rest on earth – from Italy, and India, and Africa, and from here in our own country – all of them will be raised up and, we pray, glorified in heaven, as Mary’s body is now. 

May this Eucharist be the pledge of that salvation for which we hope.