The Invitations of Mary Series

©MS 2026

There is something about the Assumption that can become almost too polished in our imagination.

Mary rises.

Angels surround her.

Heaven opens.

Gold. Clouds. Music. Triumph.

And all of that may be beautiful.

But I keep wondering what it felt like from inside Mary.

Not what the Church teaches happened to her body.

Not what the paintings show.

What did she experience?

Did she know?

Did there come a moment when the ordinary world around her began to feel thin?

Did she feel fear?

I think sometimes we make holy people so holy that we forget how disorienting holiness might actually be.

Mary had already lived through Gabriel appearing in a room.

She had already felt God moving inside her body.

She had already fled for her child’s life.

She had already watched him die.

She had already encountered the impossible afterward.

She knew better than most that God could suddenly rearrange everything she thought she understood.

And still—

if death came for her, perhaps it felt like death.

Perhaps there was weakness.

Perhaps breath became difficult.

Perhaps someone held her hand.

Perhaps she understood exactly what was happening.

Perhaps she didn’t.

And then, somehow, there was no separation.

That may be the part of the Assumption I find most beautiful.

Christian hope usually contains a waiting.

The body returns to the earth.

The soul waits for resurrection.

But Mary’s story, according to Catholic belief, is different.

She is taken whole.

The hands that kneaded bread.

The feet that walked toward Elizabeth.

The arms that carried Jesus.

The breasts that fed him.

The eyes that watched Calvary.

The body that had known pregnancy, labor, exhaustion, aging, grief.

None of it discarded.

None of it treated as an inconvenient shell that had finally served its purpose.

Taken.

Redeemed.

Home.

I wonder whether Mary recognized Jesus before she understood anything else.

Maybe there was no grand announcement.

Maybe after all the angels, prophecies, swords, miracles, crowds, crosses, and fire—

there was simply her son.

And perhaps that was enough.

Maybe the Assumption was not Mary discovering that she had become Queen of Heaven.

Maybe, for one exquisite instant, it was simply a mother realizing:

I am going to him.

No more distance.

No more waiting.

No more remembering the weight of a newborn who had long since left her arms.

No more standing beneath anything.

And perhaps whatever she felt next cannot be translated into human language.

But I like imagining that before the crowns and hymns and titles came—

before generations called her Assumed into Heaven—

Mary saw Jesus.

And went home.