Archbishop Dolan's Thought for the Week

August 26, 2008 - Year of St. Paul

Dear Friends united in love and service of Jesus Christ and His Church:

She’s all over our Catholic calendar these days:

On August 15, we celebrated her Assumption, body and soul, into heaven . . .

A week later, the feast of her Queenship . . .

September 8 (nine months after the feast of her Immaculate Conception, December 8), we’ll observe her Nativity, her birthday . . .

A week later, her title as Our Lady of Sorrows . . .

Seems we can’t get enough of her. Rightly so. She is, after all, in the lyric of Wadsworth, “Our tainted natures’ solitary boast!”

When I was a kid and almost weekly went to the movies, I used to really enjoy the “Coming attractions” that would roll before the movie. Still do, on the occasional video, when I do not “fast-forward” through the “previews.” It gives me something to look forward to.

In a way, Mary, the Mother of the Lord Jesus and our own spiritual mother, is a “preview,” a “coming attraction.”

Through the dogma of her assumption, God our Father teases us with what He has prepared for us: to be with Him, body and soul, for all eternity, in heaven.

Our Lady is not a goddess. She is a human being like you and me. In her, God elevates all humanity and reminds us how He intended it to be.

From the start, He wanted all of us to be free from sin, in perfect union with Him, utterly happy in obedience to His will. The first Adam and Eve ruined that dream; the second Adam and Eve, Jesus and Mary, restored it.

Mary is hardly less human because she is free from sin; she is more genuinely human, for sin only detracts from humanity’s nobility.

Our Father intended all of us to be immaculately conceived; He wants all of us to be with Him body and soul in heaven forever, as she is through her assumption.

In God’s original design, she would not have stood out at all. She would have been ordinary.

So she’s always there, to remind us how God wants it all to work out.

Yes, Satan crossed God’s original plan by successfully tempting the first Adam and Eve to original sin.

But, an even bigger yes, God crossed Satan’s nightmare on Calvary, where the second Adam restored us to His Father’s dominion, as the second Eve crushed the serpent’s head.

No wonder we recall her so often . . .

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan

P.S. In my last communiqué with you, I gave a commercial for the Catholic Herald. But, I failed to include an important part when it comes to closing the sale: the telephone number and Web address. You can order the Herald by calling (414) 769-3500 or online at www.chnonline.org. Either way, I hope you will accept my invitation to bring this excellent resource into your home.

P.S. Join me in a renewal of the past consecration of this archdiocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, October 7, 2008, the Feast of the Holy Rosary, at the Basilica of Holy Hill. The Rosary will begin at 6:30 p.m., followed by Mass and the prayer renewing the consecration.

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