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Today, Aug. 15, is the feast of the Assumption, a solemnity commemorating the end of the Virgin Mary’s earthly life and the assumption of her body and soul into heaven. The day also marks the anniversary of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN).
On this day in 1981, EWTN’s foundress, Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, started her television show out of a garage studio in Alabama. The broadcast launched what is now the largest global Catholic media network in the world. (Note: CNA is a service of EWTN News, an affiliate of EWTN.)
As Catholics celebrate the Assumption and EWTN commemorates 44 years of spreading the Eternal Word, we look back at what Mother Angelica said about Jesus’ mother and her assumption into heaven.
Assumption of Mary
“This is the feast of Our Lady’s assumption, and a lot of people don’t understand that,” Mother Angelica, a Poor Clare of Perpetual Adoration, said during an Aug. 15, 2000, EWTN broadcast. “They get it all mixed up with Our Lady’s immaculate conception. And it’s different.”
The Assumption is a fairly new feast day in the Church, but the holiday has roots in the earliest centuries of Christian belief. Mother Angelica explained to her audience that “when all the apostles heard Our Lady had died, they all went where she was, except Thomas.”
“St. Thomas, according to tradition, was always late, always late,” Mother Angelica joked. “We all have somebody like that in our family. They’re always late.”
“So when he came, they opened up the [tomb] and she was gone… And from the very beginning of Christianity, it was always believed that she was assumed into heaven. It just makes sense.”
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It makes sense, Mother Angelica said, “because she was so pure and so holy. There was no reason for her to rot away like we’re going to.”
“Our Lady could never even commit one little sin. So what does she do? She benefits by all the graces, we will benefit by the blood of Jesus — by redemption,” she said. “You say, ‘Well, why should she be so different?’ Well, because she was created by God and before time began, he had her in his mind to be the mother of his Son — the Eternal Word.”
“You can’t even think for a half a second that the mother of God could be in the hands of Satan. That would defile the temple,” she said, adding: “I mean, that’s common sense. You don’t need anything else to really realize that God’s temple had to be absolutely perfect for his sake.”
While Mary was born perfect, Mother Angelica said, “we were all born with original sin, and we have consequences for original sin, even after baptism.” We experience “jealousy, anger, and oversensitivity. We’re born with a lot of things that are not like Jesus. And so we have to overcome these things.”
But eventually, “Our Lady’s assumption is something we’re all going to have,” because “we’re all going to rise… the day will come at the end of the world when God will breathe and say: ‘Rise.’”
‘Secret of holiness’
“Our Lady had to be awesome, because she always said yes to God. That’s the secret of holiness,” Mother Angelica said. “Oh, you don’t have to be bright, you don’t have to be a genius, you don’t have to build buildings, you don’t have to do any of those things. You have to do God’s will with love and sacrifice.”
Ultimately, it “all comes down to love,” she said. “And you only do God’s will because you love. Our Lady always loved God and always did his will with perfect union.”
On the solemnity of Mary’s assumption, “we should thank God that he created such a woman,” Mother Angelica said. “There had to be somebody like her. And only from her, only from this holy, perfect woman, could the Eternal Word come.”
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