When Our Lord ascended into the glory of His Heavenly kingdom, He granted singular favors to the Holy Virgin Mary. They are recounted here in an excerpt taken from The Divine Life of the Most Holy Virgin, a compilation of the mystical visions of Venerable Mary of Agreda.
Witnesses of the Ascension
Whilst Our Lord was in the Supper-room with His blessed Mother, it happened, by a particular disposition of Divine Providence, that many of the faithful and pious women besides the three Marys and Magdalen congregated there to the number of one hundred and twenty. The Divine Master filled their hearts with holy fervor. He instructed His disciples and enriched the Church with the sacred mysteries and Sacraments. At length arrived the happy hour in which, as the true heir of eternal felicity, He was to ascend to His Eternal Father. Begotten from all eternity and consubstantial with His Heavenly Father, He was to assume into Heaven His Sacred Humanity in order that all the prophecies concerning His coming, life, death and redemption might be accomplished. He thus wished to seal all the mysteries by that of the Ascension, at which He promised to send the Holy Ghost, for the Comforter would not come until Christ had ascended into Heaven, because He and the Father were to send Him to His well-beloved Church. In order then to worthily celebrate this joyous and auspicious day, He chose the one hundred and twenty as witnesses, viz., the most holy Virgin, the twelve Apostles, the seventy-two disciples, Magdalen and Martha, Lazarus their brother, the three Marys and many others of the faithful, both men and women. At the head of this little flock which represented the entire Church, Jesus, the Divine Shepherd, left the Supper-room and walked through the streets of Jerusalem with His most pure and tender Mother by His side. Thus they advanced in the direction of Bethania, about two miles from Jerusalem, towards Mt. Olivet. The company of the Angels, and also of the Saints who had been taken out of Limbo and Purgatory, followed the Lord all radiant and glorious, singing canticles of praise, but they were visible only to Mary.
The Divine Lord blessed them with a joyous countenance, full of majesty. Joining His hands, He began to ascend slowly out of their sight, leaving upon the mountain the imprint of His sacred feet. With a scarcely perceptible motion, He arose in the air, drawing after Him the loving eyes and ravished hearts of His first-born children. And as the attraction of the sun causes the motion of the inferior planets, thus Jesus triumphant drew after Him the Angels and the glorified Saints, who accompanied Him.
Mary is Taken into Heaven
But the new and hidden mystery operated on this occasion by the power of the Most High was that of taking with Him into Heaven His most holy Mother, there to give her that place due to her as His Mother and acquired by her merits, to be possessed by her in due time, for all eternity. The Almighty willed that while the Blessed Mother was in Heaven, she should still remain in the company of the faithful on Mt. Olivet.
The blessed Queen was then exalted with her Divine Son and placed at His right hand, as had been foretold by David (Ps. 44), and there she remained during three days. It was becoming that, at that time, this mystery should be concealed from both the Apostles and the faithful, for had they seen Mary ascend with Jesus into Heaven, their affliction would have been too great. As they beheld their divine and beloved Master receding gradually from their sight, they gave vent to their grief in sighs and tears, and when a luminous cloud hid Him from their eyes, their sorrow became still deeper.
The Eternal Father and the Holy Ghost, attended by all the blessed spirits, descended on a cloud to meet the only begotten and Incarnate Son and His Virgin Mother. Then both those Divine Persons, according to our manner of understanding, embraced them with a kiss of ineffable purity, which caused a new joy to all the choirs of Heaven, who sang: “Open, O Princes, your eternal gates, and let the great King of Glory and the Queen of Virtues enter. Already has His liberal and infinite mercy given to men the power of acquiring with justice the rights they had lost by sin, and of meriting, by the observance of His law, eternal beatitude as His brethren and co-heirs. In order to increase our joy, He brings with Him the Mother of piety, who gave Him the body in which He has vanquished Satan. Our Queen is replenished with such grace and beauty that she fills with joy all those that behold her.”
This procession, so admirably arranged, arrived in Paradise with incomprehensible joy. The Angels ranged themselves on one side, the Saints on the other, and Jesus Christ and His august Mother passed through their midst. All rendered to Christ supreme adoration, and to Mary, the co-redemptrix, the veneration due to her, singing canticles of praise in honor of the Author of grace and life. The Eternal Father placed the Incarnate Word at His right hand on the throne of the Divinity. The great Queen remained humbled in the depth of her nothingness, because of her extraordinary humility and wisdom. She abased herself in the knowledge that she was a mere creature, and this admirable humility of their Queen was to Angels and men a new motive for joy. The voice of the Eternal Father was heard, saying, “Ascend higher, My daughter”; and her Divine Son also called her, saying, “Arise, My Mother, and come to the place which I will give thee.” The Holy Ghost added, “Come, My spouse, My beloved, receive My eternal embrace.”
Mary Returns to the World
Then to the whole celestial court was made known the decree of the Most Holy Trinity, which gave to the august Mother the seat at the right hand of her Son, on the throne of the Blessed Trinity, and she was offered the choice of returning to the world or of remaining in Heaven. Arising from the throne, she prostrated herself before the Blessed Trinity and, in imitation of her Son, showed herself ready to labor for the good of the Church and to relinquish the ineffable joys of Heaven. This heroic act of charity was so agreeable to God that, having purified and enlightened her, He raised her to the intuitive vision of the Divinity and surrounded her with glory. Thus, like the industrious bee, she descended from the Church Triumphant to the Church Militant laden with the flowers of the most pure charity, to make the sweet honeycomb of the love of God and her neighbor for the young children of the primitive Church, whom she raised to be strong and robust men, who afterwards became the foundation of the great edifice of the Church.
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This article is taken from a chapter in The Divine Life of the Most Holy Virgin: Abridgment of The Mystical City of God by Venerable Mary of Agreda which is available from TAN Books.
