by Rev. Herbert Nichols

Italians, Portuguese, Hispanics have the custom of carrying statues throughout the neighborhood streets in procession. We Americans don't witness much of this any more. But when most people were unable to read or write, this was a teaching method.

For example, the Italian procession called Incinata witnessed the carrying of the statues of Jesus and Mary from opposite direction. Then under an arch of branches and flowers the two met and were carried side by side into the church, symbolizing Jesus meeting his mother and leading her to heaven with Him.

The question is often asked; and we simply do not know the direct answer: Did the Blessed Mother die? Since death is a consequence of sin; and we believe in Mary's Immaculate Conception was she therefore also preserved from bodily death?

Since the sixth century there have been churches dedicated in her honor called the Church of the Dormition (or Falling Asleep) There has also been the consistent tradition that our Lady was assumed body and soul into heaven, when the course of her earthly life had ended". In using this phrase the controversy is avoided but not answered.

But placing the emphasis on the culmination of earthly life rather than focus on one particular moment, we are given the example of Mary as role model for all of us.

Mary was chosen by God to be his instrument in bringing the Savior into the world -- nevertheless God respected her identity and freedom by asking her permission -- as he asks all of us permission to give us grace in our lives. We all have free will and God never forces his will on anyone.

Mary willingly said, "Yes;" coming from a long ancestral line of those who had been asked to do some rather spectacular and seemingly impossible things like Abraham. Like others before and since, Mary's cooperation was not without confusion. And she asked: "How can this be?"

Mary's cooperation with grace stirred her soul to sing the praises of God: "who has done great things for me." Mary's jubilation in being blessed, in being asked to cooperate with God and even in being assumed into heaven is not a unique privilege for her alone; but rather that she stands first.

This privilege that is hers already awaits us also at the end of time if we have been faithful. In referring to Christ's resurrection, St. Paul writes: "He is the first to rise, but where He is, we will follow and we will have a body like Christ's body."

Since Mary was his first disciple, the first to answer yes, is it not fitting that she should be the first to be with Him? She is also His mother, who for 30 years shared the same home with Him before he began His new ministry. She is the one who stood beneath his cross and shared the pains of witnessing her son's execution. She is the one who asked for his first miracle even though it seemed inopportune -- a genuine need, a request from the heart is never denied.

Is it not only fitting that Jesus should choose to share His eternal life with His mother by granting her this privilege of not having to wait.

Now she is able as a mother to intercede for all of us, as she did at Cana. A mother loves and cares for her children, kisses the boo-boo and cleans the wound. She cannot make the wound disappear. Only God can forgive sins. But Mary leads us to Him. Her desire to help us is limited only by our own lack of ambition or will power.

Mary prays for each and all of us that in due time we will follow by saying yes to God -- by cooperating with Grace -- by stirring up in our own hearts a song of praise: