Abp. Aymond: Mary’s Assumption into heaven ‘shows us how to die’

Story and photos by Beth Donze, Clarion Herald

Just as signs along the highway direct drivers safely to their destinations, so does the Blessed Mother give us clear directions on how to successfully travel down the road of life, said Archbishop Gregory Aymond, during the homily of the Aug. 15 Mass marking the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary.

Mary, who at her death was assumed body and spirit into heaven, without burial or decay, reminds us that our ultimate “destination” is heaven, the archbishop said.

“We need direction. We need signs that point us on the right path,” said the archbishop, speaking to masked and socially-distanced congregants seated inside the National Votive Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, located on the State Street campus of Ursuline Academy.

“Perhaps her Assumption can say to you and to me, ‘Follow me! This is where my son wants you to go at the end of your life,’” he said. “Mary reminds us, in this solemn feast, that this earthly life – as valuable as it is, as sacred as it is – is not our final home.”

Yet before we get to that heavenly destination, Mary can show us how to strike “a sense of balance” between the earthly and the eternal, the archbishop said. She reminds us of how one eye should be focused on the earthly “here-and-now,” while the other eye should stay trained on heaven.

“If we remember this, obviously this will influence the decisions we will make, our attitudes,” Archbishop Aymond said. He noted how Mary took her earthly vocation as a mother and wife “very seriously,” saying yes to God even in moments of confusion and pain – as in the time she was told she would bear the savior, and when confronted with the deaths of her husband and son.

Significantly, the archbishop said, Mary also was present in the Upper Room with the apostles awaiting the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, making her a model of perseverance, prayerfulness and fearlessness about sharing her faith in Christ.

“Mary shows us how to live, and in the Assumption, she shows us how to die. (She) reminds us that this is a temporary home and (that) we await the Kingdom of God,” Archbishop Aymond said. “Mary prays with us and for us in this earthly existence.”

Giving thanks for God’s creation

After the Prayer of the Faithful, the archbishop conducted the “Blessing of Herbs,” an annual Ursuline tradition that honors the legacy of Mother St. Francis Xavier Hebert, an Ursuline Sister who planted a garden of medicinal plants in the courtyard of the Old Ursuline Convent in the French Quarter in the early 1730s. Plants and herbs harvested from the garden were used in her medical ministry, and to this day, Ursuline maintains vegetable and herb gardens on its State Street campus as an outdoor classroom.

Mother St. Francis Xavier is recognized as the first female pharmacist in the United States. “We ask God’s blessing upon these herbs as a sign of our gratitude,” said the archbishop, pointing out that God’s creation supplies vital food and medicine in times of sickness and suffering.

As he was greeting congregants at the start of Mass, Archbishop Aymond thanked attendees for wearing their masks and following the distancing directives posted on the pews. He seized the moment to remind them that God never engages in social distancing.

“He is always living in us; he is always close to us, and so is our Mother Mary,” he said.

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