the light of these words of His, the narrative of the Evangelists regarding the last three years of His life: is it likely that her welfare, her comfort, her happiness ever ceased to be His care?
Of course, to all who believed in Christ, and who, in these first years, risked everything by openly confessing Him, the Blessed Mother was an object of special and filial veneration. This was particularly true of the apostles, who felt like their disciples that in reverencing and honoring the Mother they were honoring and reverencing the Son. S. John was now privileged to hold Christ's place toward her. The last time she is mentioned by name in the New Testament is in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where we find her with her near relatives in the assembly which elected S. Matthias. So long as S. John remained in Jerusalem Mary was his charge, cherished and reverenced by that Virgin Apostle. When, at the dispersion of the apostles, John went to reside in Ephesus, thither also Mary went with him. It is probable, however, that as John, like the other apostles, traveled through Palestine and Asia Minor, preaching the Gospel, founding new churches, and confirming in the faith such as already existed, that his adopted mother did not separate from him. Not before the decade intervening between the years 60 and 70 of the present era, did the Beloved Disciple assume at Ephesus the government of all the churches of Anterior Asia. If our Blessed Lady died between these dates, she must have passed her eightieth year. Tradition in the Church always assigned the night of August 14-15 as the date of her passage to a happy immortality. On the 15th of August the Church has always celebrated her Assumption, that is, her being received into Heaven in body and soul. It was but proper that the body which had known nothing of sin or stain, the body of the Mother of our Ransom on the Cross, should not have been touched by the corruption of the grave. All the bitterness of death had passed over her soul on Calvary: her own death was all peace and sweetness and unspeakable anticipation of the eternal reunion with her Son, her Saviour, her God.
It must seem, to every candid and reflecting mind, both natural and logical, that Christians, from the day when Christ first began to have followers and worshippers, should have shown to His Mother a singular reverence. The Apostles, the early disciples, whose faith had never wavered, or had only been temporarily shaken, during the Saviour's brief but necessary period of suffering, must have felt their veneration foi \he heroic Mother very much increased by the preternatural courage she displayed in His hour of bitter and mortal trial.
The narrative of S. John is sublime in its simplicity and brevity. It is the tradition of the Eastern Church, derived from the first believers in Jerusalem — from the contemporaries and relatives of our Lord and His Mother, that " the coat without seam, woven from the top throughout," for which the Roman soldiers cast lots, while He, the wearer, was hanging in His death-agony overhead — was the fruit of her labor of love. Like the saintly mother of the child-prophet Samuel, Mary would allow no hands but her own to weave her Son His principal garment. It might be said to be His sole worldly wealth; and His executioners cast lots for it, while she was looking on, or within reach of their discussion. . . . "And the soldiers indeed did these things. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, His Mother, and His Mother's sister, Mary (wife) of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen. . . ." Then ensued the bequeathing to the Beloved Disciple of the dearest earthly treasure possessed by Jesus of Nazareth — His widowed and homeless Mother. She, however, had been too willing a learner in His school, too close an imitator of His divine examples, to repine at her poverty and homelessness. Her sorest trial was her separation from Him.
When the short joys of the Forty Days' converse with Him after His resurrection, were ended — she had been too well enlightened by Him not to understand that the divinest work yet reserved to her by Providence, remained to be fulfilled. This was, that, as she had been the Mother of the Body given on the cross as the ransom for the entire race of man, as she had nursed that Body with more than a mother's devotion — so now she should devote the remaining years of her life to forming His mystic body. His church.
As the body of the faithful grew, first in Jerusalem and through' out Palestine, and next through all the countries of Asia, Africa, and Europe — the divinity of Christ was more openly, more solemnly, more courageously affirmed. Men and women everywhere bore witness to it by suffering imprisonment, stripes, and death. They honored their belief by leading God-like lives, even when these were not crowned by the glory of martyrdom.
It is the constant affirmation of Christian writers, that Christ's Blessed Mother, all through these trial-full years of the infant Church, was to Apostles, disciples, and believers of every class a model and a comforter, all that a mother and such a Mother, should be. We find, that when the Apostles returned to Jerusalem, after the Ascension, they went to where our Blessed Lady was staying — in the house of that saintly Mary, " the mother of John-Mark " (Acts xii. 12). This is the house, according to the most venerable traditions, in which our Lord celebrated the Last Supper, which was the first place of meeting and divine worship for believers in Jerusalem. It was the centre and nursery of Christianity in the great city all through this first period of persecution, loving labor, and wonderful growth. "And when they were come in (from Mount Olivet), they went up into an Upper Room, where abode Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James and Alpheus and Simon Zelotes, and Jude (the brother) of James. All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren."
In the election of S. Matthias, which is next recorded, and which evidently took place in the same spacious Upper Room, as well as in the assembly on the Day of Pentecost, the text indicates that she was also present. It was a matter of course, that His Mother should be the very soul of these meetings, although it was left to Peter and his brother-Apostles to regulate everything that pertained to the doctrine and discipline of the Christian society. All through the triumphs and trials which, alternately, awaited the Apostolic labors, Mary was present to cheer, encourage, and sustain. What joy filled her soul, when on that very day of Pentecost, after S. Peter's inspired address to the multitude, no less than " three thousand souls " were baptized and added to the body of the faithful! " And they were persevering in the doctrine of the Apostles, and in the communication of the breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: many wonders also and signs were done by the Apostles in Jerusalem; and there was great fear in all. And all they that believed, were together, and had all things in common. Their possessions and goods they sold, and divided them to all, according as every one had need. And continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they took their meat with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord increased daily together such as should be saved."
What a blessed and blissful family was that which daily increased around the Second Eve, the Mother of the New Life! Heroic
