Our Lord Jesus and and Blessed Virgin Mary Drawing Us(Assumption)

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw all things to myself.” (Jn. 12:32)

My dear brethren,

It seems that our Lady could have pronounced these words on this feast of the Assumption. Yet they were pronounced not by our Lady but by our Lord Jesus Christ. When did He pronounce them? Speaking about His Ascension? It seems also that these words would fit the occasion of our Lord’s Ascension. But no. St John, who recalls these words which were said a few days before His Passion, writes: “Now this He said, signifying what death He should die” (Jn. 12:33). So, the first sense of these words is that, from the time when our Lord Jesus Christ was lifted up on the Cross, He started to draw all things to Himself crucified.

 

Our Lord Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins. Indeed, the Angel Gabriel said to St Joseph: “thou shalt call His name JESUS [that is, Yahweh saves]. For He shall save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1:21). To do that, our Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself as Victim of Propitiation on the Cross: indeed, St Paul says to the Ephesians that Christ “might reconcile both [i.e. Jews and Gentiles] to God in one body by the cross” (Eph. 2:16). “No man taketh it [my life] away from me: but I lay it down of myself, and I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (Jn. 10:18).

Thus, the Father had given this commandment to the Son, that He would lay down His life for our salvation, and then rise again; the Son most willingly obeyed His Father. Indeed, the Father “spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Rom. 8:32). “For the charity of Christ presseth us: judging this, that if one died for all, then all were dead. And Christ died for all; that they also who live, may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14-15). This mystery of the Redemption is the heart of our Faith: it is indeed the very purpose of the Incarnation of the Son of God!

 

Now, if Christ died for all, as we just heard St Paul saying, then how is it that not all go to Heaven? Because in order that the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ be applied to our soul, we need to be UNITED WITH our Lord Jesus Christ, we need to become one with Him, and that is done by the “bond of perfection” (Col. 3:14), which is charity. Our Lord took our human nature, but that union at the mere natural level is not sufficient for us to receive that living sap from Christ: there is need of the supernatural union by sanctifying grace and charity. To love our Lord Jesus Christ necessarily means to love Him as paying for our sins on the Cross, to love Him Crucified: we should all say to Him: “My Lord, I deserved to be on this cross, not Thou. Thou hast deigned to take my place; please, allow me to be with Thee on the Cross, to share Thy Cross!” that is how our Lord Jesus Christ draws all things to Himself crucified: He draws us by love, the love for Jesus and Jesus Crucified. We are not ashamed of our Lord Crucified, we are not “enemies of the Cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:18), rather we glory in Jesus Crucified, as St Paul says: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14)

This union with Christ crucified is necessary for salvation: “we are the sons of God. And if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ: yet so, if we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him” (Rom. 8:16-17). And to Timothy St Paul says the same thing: “A faithful saying: for if we be dead with him, we shall live also with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us” (2 Tim. 2:11-12). There is a big IF in both passages: union with Jesus glorified pre-requires union with Jesus crucified.

When we hear that, we tend to be afraid, discouraged and think this is too difficult. And indeed, to our weak nature, wounded by sin, it is impossible. The Apostles were “saying among themselves: Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking on them, saith: With men it is impossible; but not with God: for all things are possible with God” (Mk. 10:26-27). On the one hand, we understand the beauty of God’s love for us, sending His only-begotten Son to save us, to pay for our sins in our place; we understand that this is a mystery of love, of charity, and we ought to respond with wholehearted love, willingly embracing Jesus Crucified. But on the other hand, we feel our weakness, our failures, our inability to follow Jesus Crucified.

Jesus Crucified draws all to Himself, and we do hear His calling: “Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light” (Mt. 11:28-30). We do hear that call, but we still feel weak and unable to respond. But then we look and we see one who did follow our Lord Jesus Christ crucified, the first at the foot of the Cross: the Blessed Virgin Mary!

Jesus Crucified draws all to Himself in an orderly way: the first He drew is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is redeemed in a perfect way, more perfect than any other: she has been preserved from all sin, by very special graces given to her in view of the merits of Jesus crucified. By that grace, she has been perfectly faithful to all further graces, perfectly obedient, perfectly loving Jesus, and loving Him to the end, loving Him all the way to the foot of the Cross. She is thus Immaculate, Immaculate in her Conception, Immaculate in her whole life, not merely to become the worthy receptable of the Incarnate Word as His Mother, but also to become an immaculate victim with Him Crucified. That union with Mary and Jesus is thus perfect, with no obstacle of sin: she is completely redeemed, the jewel of Redemption.

And precisely because she was perfectly drawn by our Lord Jesus Christ all the way to the foot of the Cross as the first one there, she deserved to be drawn by Him into Heaven before any other, and that is today’s feast: the Assumption. She followed Jesus into Heaven because she followed Him to Calvary first. She was drawn by Him to the Heavenly Reward because she let herself be drawn by Him to the foot of the Cross. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw all things to myself” (Jn. 12:32), first to Calvary then to Heaven.

And not only did she follow Jesus both to Calvary and to Heaven, but she obtained from Him the grace to be able to draw others after her to Him. We see that at the foot of the Cross: she is first, but she did not come there alone, she drew with her St John the Apostle and Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen and Salome and probably other holy women. She is the first in a long chain of redeemed saints. And then she, as Queen of Heaven, welcomes them in Heaven at the end of their lives, and ultimately at the end of the world. Not only she welcomes them, but she draws them, drawing their heart, their desires to heavenly reward: if only we would understand better the exceeding beauty and perfection of the heavenly rewards, we would be so much the more fervent in following our Lord Jesus Christ and our Lady at the foot of the Cross, “for I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18).

Then our very weakness becomes an asset (2 Cor. 12:10): when we acknowledge it, we become like little children and we come to our Mother who takes us in her arms and thus we can come to the foot of the Cross, in the arms of Mary. There is no greater obstacle to salvation than pride, because “God resisteth the proud” (Jam. 4:6). Isn’t it pride to claim that one does not need our Lady but can go straight to Christ, to claim that one does not need to obey the Commandments of God because “he is saved by faith alone” without charity and obedience to the Commandments, thus refusing to deny himself, take his cross and follow Christ crucified? Such pride is not the teachings of the Gospel at all. Our Lord Jesus Christ is very clear: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt. 16:24). But “no man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him” (Jn. 6:44). The Father draws us to Jesus; Jesus draws us to Himself crucified, in an orderly way, in the long chain of Saints, of whom our Lady is the first as the Gospel testifies (Jn. 19:25).

Let us then be drawn by our Lady to Jesus, as the Church sings with the Canticle of canticles: “Draw us – o Immaculate Virgin – we will run after thee to the odour of thy ointments” (Cant. 1:3), that is, the beautiful odour of thy virtues. Let us be drawn by the beauty of her reward, “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Apoc. 12:1) as St John saw in the Apocalypse. Let us be drawn by the perfection of her virtues! Let us be drawn especially by her Merciful Heart! Let us be drawn by her to Jesus, first to Jesus crucified and then to Jesus glorified! Let us be drawn as little children, children of God, “if children, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ: yet so, if we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17). Amen.

 

Father François Laisney