[00:00] Praise be Jesus and Mary. On other occasions, we've looked into this beautiful parallel that we find between the Visitation and King David, who back in the book of Samuel to a certain point in the book

[00:31] of Kings, one of the four separate books of Kings broken up sometimes into the book of Samuel and the book of Kings. Anyway, in those books, it recounts how David desired to have the Ark of the Covenant with him. And so he sends some of the Levites down to bring the Ark. And when the Ark came to his house, he said, "Who am I that the Ark of my Lord should come

[01:03] to me?" And that Ark remained in the house of David, it remained in the house of Obed-Edom along its route to Jerusalem, it remained in the house of Obed-Edom for three months, bringing so many blessings to that house. And when the Ark was ultimately brought to Jerusalem, to David's city, David leapt with joy. That's what Scripture tells us. And we find there's an incredible parallel here, that here, our Blessed Mother who is

[01:36] the real, the new Ark of the Covenant, same things happen, perfect parallels. Three months in the house of Elizabeth, John the Baptist leaps in the womb of Elizabeth. Elizabeth says, "Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Paralleling exactly the words of David, "Who am I that the Ark of the Lord should come to me?" So all of this points to Our Lady as being the Ark of the Covenant. And where do we see the Ark of the Covenant in the New Testament? There's actually only one place where it's spoken of clearly, and that is in the book

[02:09] of Revelation. Where is it? With the woman clothed with the sun. So the New Testament points directly to Our Lady being the new Ark of the Covenant and as being in heaven. The woman clothed with the sun. St. John the Evangelist sees the Ark and directly after that he sees, together with the Ark, the woman clothed with the sun, standing on the moon, with the crown of 12 stars. So here we have the whole mystery of Our Lady's assumption into heaven, which is just

[02:43] sort of the perfect flowering of her being the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was something precious. God gave special instructions as to how that Ark was to be constructed. It had to be made of acacia wood, which is a naturally incorruptible wood. It had to be completely gilded inside and out, a sign of its beauty. The precious value of this place where God would be present in a unique way, where He would dwell with His people.

[03:14] So all of that was a sign of Our Blessed Mother. She is the true Ark of the Covenant. And as David wanted to bring that Ark from where it was, left somewhere out in the countryside, bring it to his house, so also our Lord Jesus Christ, the new David, the fulfillment of all that David was, wanted to bring that Ark to His house, into His eternal temple. And that's just what He did. In fact, this is one of the most fitting reasons for the assumption of Our Blessed Mother,

[03:48] and that is the love of Jesus for His mother. If you had it within your power to honor your mother in the greatest way, wouldn't it be a defect of your love if you didn't do that? If Jesus, who is God, has the power, in fact, to assume His mother into heaven and to seat her alongside Himself, to honor her in the highest way, could we say He had the most perfect filial love if He didn't do that? This is actually, it points to His perfect observance of the fourth commandment.

[04:23] No son ever observed the fourth commandment as Jesus did. He observed all the commandments. He gave us a perfect example of obedience to God's will. And among the examples, we find His obedience to the fourth commandment. He honored His Father, His eternal Father, but He also honored His mother. And He honored her not the way that we honor with a whole lot of defects and negligence. He honored her in the most perfect way.

[04:53] He honored her to the point of wanting to unite her entirely to Himself in His own glory. So the assumption of Our Lady actually points to the incredible love of Jesus for His own mother, to His desire to honor her. And it gives glory to Him, shows just how much He loves His mother, shows how much He is faithful to His duty as a child, it's a duty of us as children to honor our parents.

[05:29] But it also shows how He has brought through to the maximum that collaboration that He desired from her in realizing the redemption. We find our Blessed Mother united to our Lord Jesus Christ right from her immaculate conception, which is once again His glory, she's conceived immaculately thanks to His merits, the anticipation of His merits, of His passion and death.

[06:01] And then right from there, right through from the Annunciation, in every moment of the life of Jesus, we find this perfect collaboration of our Blessed Mother, right through until Calvary, where she's at the foot of the cross as the mother of the Church, experiencing the birth pangs of the Church and of every soul, the rebirth of every soul to the life of grace. So wouldn't it be fitting then that this be taken through right through to the end, to

[06:31] the glory as well? If we find this complete union with Our Lady right from the beginning of her existence, right through to all the moments of the life of Jesus as the new Eve, united to the new Adam, why should this just end on Calvary? No, it goes right through and she shares even in His ascension, even in His glory, His triumph in heaven. So this all points to the fulfillment of her being the new Eve alongside the new Adam.

[07:02] There's also another mystery here and that is how God is faithful to those words of Scripture when He says that He will humble the proud and exalt the lowly, exalt the humble. Our Lady in her life was so incredibly humble. She believed herself the least of all creatures. Never did she seek her own glory. We find, we heard it in today's Gospel, the Magnificat, "He has cast down the mighty from

[07:37] their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has looked with favor on His lowly servant. Lowly servant." To be lowly means to consider oneself the least. To consider oneself poor and weak and in need of the assistance of those who are stronger. And that's what Our Lady perceived so well.

[08:10] She was so humble before God, but having humbled herself to the least position, at least in her own understanding of herself, God has now raised her to the highest. So that's how it works. If you want to be great and you seek greatness on your own and you seek to glorify yourself and gain glory for yourself in a very human way, a prideful way, you risk being humbled maybe even eternally. God will not honor and glorify a soul who seeks its own glory on its own apart from

[08:45] Him, but He will glorify a soul who humbles itself and seeks only His glory. And this is what we find so perfectly realized in Our Blessed Mother. She never sought her own glory and God saw to it that she was glorified. Also and this is maybe the deepest reason for her incredible beauty and glory, her beauty is above all a supernatural beauty.

[09:16] There's something that just is dwelling within her that just shows itself forth even on the outside, but it's a divine beauty. It's a spiritual beauty, the beauty of the virtues, the beauty of God's own divine life reigning within her. And this is her incredible union with the divine will, God's divine will, in other words, the very source of His eternal love has always dwelt within her from the first moment of her conception so that her will has always been entirely given over to His will.

[09:50] His will has always been reigning within her. She never did her own will. His will was always triumphing in hers and so here is the secret for those great things that the Almighty has done in me. "Great things has the Almighty done in me," Our Lady says in the Magnificat, and that is the very divine will operating and reigning in this creature who is entirely docile to Him. If you give your will entirely to God and you desire that His will reign in you, His

[10:24] will will do great things in you. His will is the will that does great things, not ours. If we want to just do things on our own, we risk doing very small and limited things. If we let God do the things in us, He will do great things as He did in our Blessed Mother. The greatness of her life isn't so much what she did as what she allowed God to do in her. And this is the secret of sanctity, it's not so much what we do, it's what we allow God

[10:55] to do in us. She gave Him complete proprietorship, so to speak, over her soul and He did great things in her. So let us turn to our Blessed Mother as our Mother, as our Queen, as the model of the Church already in glory. In fact, she personifies all that the Church is called to in eternity and let us keep in mind those words of hers at Fatima, "My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge in a way that will

[11:29] lead you to God." This truth is so true. Her Immaculate Heart is our refuge in a way that will lead us to God. Why? Because her heart is just so in God. You can't enter into her heart without finding yourself in Him who reigns within her. She is our Mother, but she is Mother precisely because she is just so filled with divine life and divine presence as the Ark of the Covenant, as Temple of the Holy Spirit, as Mother of God.

[12:00] Let us praise and adore and thank the Most Holy Trinity for these mysteries and let us turn to our Mother with great hope and trust and confidence, renewing our consecration to her, asking her for the grace to be docile so that she may do that which she so desires and that is to bring her children to share fully in her glory. Praise be Jesus and Mary.