27th July : Our Lady Of A Happy Death
27th July
Our Lady Of A Happy Death
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How beautiful and consoling is this title: Our Lady of a Happy Death. It is the title by which we invoke our glorious Mother of Heaven and beg of her to assist us at our last moment; it is the title which makes us hope that death will be for us the portal of a life without end.
Without doubt, devotion practiced during life, devotion to the Mother of God, is a sign of predestination and, as such, assures for us at the hour of death the assistance of this divine Mother. Mary could not abandon at this supreme moment anyone who has faithfully called upon her during life. Besides this devotion, in keeping us away from evil, draws us both strongly and calmly to the practice of the Christian virtues; in addition, it is incompatible with a life of sin and vice. It is therefore, like a remote but extremely efficacious preparation for our passage from time to eternity. That is why it is said that to serve Mary is to gain control over the devil; it is likewise written that a true servant of Mary cannot perish because, devotion to this Mother of the Divine, in keeping us virtuous, gives us a certain pledge that Heaven will be ours. Death is the crowning of life: a good life cannot end in eternal loss.
Besides, there are other particular reasons, for which Mary’s assistance is especially assured to us at the hour of death; and this assistance, provided we prove ourselves worthy of it, is bound to procure for us the special grace of a holy death. Those reasons are: Mary has merited by her own death (which is the ideal of the death of a Christian) the power of helping her faithful servants at the moment of the great passage from life to eternity. Having assisted her Divine Son in His agony and till His death on the Cross, she has received from Him the mission of assisting us equally during our agony and the hour of our death. She will exercise on our behalf the office of a Mother, at this supreme moment.
These considerations will enable us to know and to appreciate better, all that we owe to our Heavenly Mother. It is through Mary that Jesus was given to us, when He came, a tiny infant in the infirmity of human flesh, wrapped in swaddling clothes, in order to save us; it is equally through Mary that on the last day we hope to see face to face this same Jesus surrounded by the glory of the Father—the source of eternal happiness to us: “And after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
