the chilly winter and the sweltering summer, bearing her share of human ills, she lightly tasted our joys and drank deep of our woes. She is now high above the earth and skies — nearest to the throne and dearest to the heart of God. And not her soul alone, but her body too, has attained this exalted dignity, so that we hear her described by St. John as the " Woman [body and soul] clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of stars." And who, I ask, hath so exalted her? Her divine Son. And why? The Gospel of the feast tells us why, where it says: " One day Jesus entered into a certain town, and Mary and Martha received Him into their house." For Mary the contemplative and Martha the solicitous are together but a figure of this Virgin Mary, who received her Lord into the house of her virginal womb, when He came to His own and His own received Him not. Hence, since she made Him King of her house and her all here on earth, He, with equal hospitality, makes her Queen of His celestial mansions in heaven.
But what, you ask, was that house into which the Virgin Mary received her Lord here below? " The house of God," says St. Augustine, " is founded on faith, is built of hope, and roofed in with charity." The spiritual mansion into which the Virgin received her Lord, had for its foundation, faith; for its walls, hope; and for its roof, charity. That is why the Church, in the prayer of the feast of the Assumption, prays the almighty and eternal God to give us an increase of faith, hope, and charity, that by receiving
