August feasts help us develop our gift of faith as a Marian faith

As we begin the month of August, we will be celebrating two very important and beautiful feasts, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15 and the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 22. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a holy day of obligation. That means that all Catholics who have achieved the age of reason, seven years of age, are obliged to attend and participate at Mass just as all are obliged to do every Sunday. The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not a holy day of obligation, but we should make every effort to attend Mass.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a defined dogma of the Catholic Church which means Catholics are to believe that, at the moment of her death, Mary was taken up into heaven body and soul. Because Mary is the Mother of God, He would not allow her body, which was His first tabernacle, to lie in the grave. This solemnity is most important for each of us since Our Blessed Lady was given, at the moment of her death, what we live for now and hope to have at the Final Judgment, heaven where we live the glorified life of God, body and soul, for all eternity. Our Blessed Mother stands as our model for living in this world and as our embodied hope for heaven.
 
The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary reveals to us her place in the Church and in heaven. She is the first and best disciple of Jesus and, as such, she is our first and best intercessor with Him in heaven. When we celebrate these two days in August by being at Mass, we are literally living the fourth and fifth glorious mysteries of the rosary. We are uniting our lives and selves to the Lord with and through His Mother. To understand these celebrations in this way is the Church’s way of calling us to develop our gift of faith as a Marian faith.
 
Since the month of August signals the end of vacations for most of us and the return of our children, youth and young adults to school, to celebrate these two beautiful feasts now places all of them and us under the loving care of Our Blessed Mother. As Mary was the first to hold and love her infant Son, Jesus, so will she do for us. There is no better way to thank Almighty God for His gift of the Blessed Mother than to be at Mass on August 15 and 22.
 
Let our prayer be: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.”