October 2: OUR LADY OF THE ASSUMPTION (NAPLES)
On the second of October, the people of Naples commemorate a special feast in honor of Mary’s passage into Heaven. Typical of their veneration of Mary in this mystery is an art production from the eleventh century. The Morgan Library in New York now owns it. It is interesting, since it depicts the belief of our ancestors in that day when the dogma of the Assumption had not yet been declared.
Our Lady is shown in a mandorla, an almond-shaped device, signifying that she is in eternity in heaven, body and soul. She is shown at full length, frontally faced forward (somewhat stiffly and statically, in manner Byzantine to indicate the serenity and glory of eternity), large-eyed, filling out the mandorla with her noble form. It is noteworthy that only the Persons of the Trinity and the Blessed Virgin were surrounded by the mandorla in the earliest centuries of Christian art.
The crown on Our Lady’s head and the palm held upright in her hand signify victory – victory over sin, hell and death. Above Our Lady is a second almond-shaped device within which is the Hand of God the Father. The Hand represents the power of God, that power by which Mary was assumed, by which her soul and body were reunited. To God’s power, not to her own, is the Assumption due. At the base of the painting are two angels. They are: Michael, the guardian angel of the Church and Gabriel, the angel of the Incarnation. Legend says that Gabriel brought the news to Mary that she was to die and come bodily to her Son, even as the same angel had once announced the first coming of Christ to Mary, and that Michael took care of her departing soul.
Mary is body and soul in eternal glory; the ASSUMPTION OF MARY crowns her other privileges. The art of the Church is largely dogmatic, and what her doctors preach and teach, her artists paint accordingly. It is all so wonderful – art and religion help one another: God is the Lord of miracles and marvels; faith is the knowledge, and it comes from other sources than science and psychiatry. We have no official recording of the last days of Mary; the Gospels relate the life of Christ; there is no such life of Mary. The Evangelists give us few facts about her. Few facts – but what important ones! She is the Mother of Jesus and Jesus is God, Almighty God. He could choose His own Mother and He did so. He made her immaculate, made her glorious. From her body He came; her body must be with Him, always, appropriately, fittingly. To her He has delegated His power; she it is through whom all graces now flow to us, her children. What confidence this should invoke in our hearts. She, too, says to us as her Son did, “Ask and you shall receive;” receive of me, your Mother.
From the Woman in Orbit - A Timeless Marian Treasure Compiled By Sr. Manetta Lamberty, S.C.C.
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