At the Ascension, Mary would have liked to follow her Son

To understand Mary's feelings at the Ascension, we need to understand the ties that bound her to her Son: the physical bonds of a mother to the child she bore, gave birth to, nourished, raised and watched grow. But this particular Mother also remained a virgin out of love for Him; she supported Him with her prayers in His mission and her presence in Capernaum; and she continued to do so through His Passion, all the way to the foot of the Cross.

In this spirit, Father d'Elbée (1892-1982) says, in his little book Croire à l'Amour (I Believe in Love), which we highly recommend, that at the Ascension the Mother of God would have liked to leave this world to be with Jesus, but said to herself that if her presence in the nascent Church was necessary, then she would agree to stay on earth. We can well imagine that these were her sentiments, since Saint Paul and Saint Martin, for example, had the same thoughts. In fact, the Mother of Jesus guided her Son's disciples in their prayer to receive the promised Holy Spirit. And indeed, it is a mother's role to teach her children to pray.

This, then, was Mary's state of mind on the day her Son's victory was made manifest to his disciples. One thing seems certain to me, and that is that we must pray as we have never prayed before - and do penance!

In Our Lady,

Father Bernard Pellabeuf, former Fidei Donum missionary in Zaire and Benin