Saint John’s book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, is one of the most difficult to understand because it is filled with unfamiliar, unusual, and extravagant symbolism. The Church presents it to us today, but what place would it have in our celebration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven?
In the passage we find a terrifying dragon. For Saint John, the dragon represents the power of the Roman Empire that persecuted the Church. Yet, since the Scriptures transcend historical periods, today we see it as a symbol of the evils that afflict the world…materialism, secularism, relativism. The dragon represents all that Christians are up against today, living in a culture that views faith as irrelevant, a world that suffers from what Charles Peguy called “an amnesia of eternity.”
But there is another image—a woman. The Church has long seen in her the figure of Mary, the Mother of God. She is clothed with the sun, which is to say, clothed with God, full of grace. Her crown of twelve stars points us to the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles—the Church.
The moon is also a part of the picture. It is the traditional symbol of mortality and death. But notice—the moon is under her feet, a sign that Mary has left death behind. She points us to the victory over death that her divine Son accomplished.
The woman of Revelation is expecting and about to give birth. Here we see an image of the Church which must bring Christ to birth anew in the world. This is the Church’s mission and it is our mission. We succeed and perhaps more often we are unsuccessful but we strive and strive again.
We call this the work of our sanctification, a work that should never discourage us, God’s grace helps us along the way. The Church is our support through its sacraments, prayers, and worship. The goal is heaven itself…for ourselves and for others.
Busy as we are, struggling to fight the dragons so active in our world, let us ask our Lady to obtain for us the grace of perseverance so that heaven never slips from our consciousness. May she, gloriously assumed into heaven, cure us of such amnesia!
