15 August 1989
Paris, France

Mother Duzan, Father Lloret and my dear Sisters,

At Christmas 1987 a Daughter of Charity here in Paris gave me a present of a small paperweight for my desk. It is rather unusual in that it has been fashioned out of a heavy metal that had been used for a purpose very different from that of keeping papers firm on the top of a desk. The metal was once a weapon of war. It was a piece of shrapnel that had been gathered somewhere in the north of France: a relic from the second World War.

The shrapnel had been collected by a Benedictine monk, and from it through fire and heat he chiselled out the features of the Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus nestling in her bosom. As one looks at the metal now, one is reminded both of war and peace; of destruction and salvation; of violence and gentleness; of sin and innocence. The metal that once was a symbol--and more than a symbol--of death has become a symbol of life. For did not Jesus Christ come into the world so that humanity might have life, true life, and have it more abundantly. (cf. Jn 10:10). Did He not enter the world through the womb of the Virgin Mary, whom we salute in the Salve Regina as "our life, our sweetness and our hope"? The metal paperweight speaks of a past that is marred by sin and of a future that is pregnant with hope, for Christ has come not to condemn the world but to save it.

The transformation that has taken place in the metal has been wrought by human hands, but before human hands etched out the features of Mother and Child, there was the inspiration that came to the Benedictine monk to make a weapon of war and destruction proclaim a message of peace and salvation. One cannot look at the paperweight without thinking of the sinfulness of humankind and the forgiveness of God, the selfishness of humans and the unselfishness of God, the hatred that lurks in the human heart and the love that abides in the heart of God and in the heart of her who was conceived without sin.

The paperweight is a masterpiece created through the inspiration of an artist. The Incarnation is a masterpiece created by the inspiration of Him Whom we call the Holy Spirit. "And the angel said to her: the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the Child to be born of you will be called holy, the Son of God." (Lk 1:35).

Two great and unique transformations were worked in the person of Mary by the Divine Artist. The first we honor on the 8 December and the second on the 15 August. The metal of the paperweight was created good. It was human perversity that twisted it towards dealing death to people. All of us are born with original sin, which is a bias that deflects us towards evil. Mary, we believe with the certainty of faith, was preserved from original sin and that bias towards evil, through the foreseen merits of her Son. The Divine Artist, however, continued to work on her through life, and through the fire and heat of suffering shaped her into that person of holiness than which no greater has ever or will ever be created. That is the first transformation worked in the human person of Mary of Nazareth.

The second transformation we contemplate today. Because we see now by faith, as St. Paul remarks, in a dark manner, we cannot penetrate fully the mystery of the reality that Mary is now body and soul in heaven. We rejoice and are glad that the Divine Artist has put His finishing touch to one human person. All others must wait until the Day of the Lord has come, and her Divine Son will appear "in a cloud with power and great glory." (Lk 21:27).

However deep and impenetrable the mysteries of God are, they have been made known to us for a purpose. Each mystery of God is a beam of light shining in the darkness of this life and lighting up the path of pilgrimage that leads us back to our Father's house. When the angel Gabriel announced the mystery of the Incarnation to Mary of Nazareth, Our Lady was perplexed. (cf. Lk 1:34). God's mystery was too incomprehensible for her human mind. But in accepting and, above all, in living the mystery of the Annunciation, Mary found light and strength to go forward through the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries of her own existence. So, too, with us as we contemplate today the mystery of Mary's Assumption, body and soul, into heaven, our minds will ask: "And how can this be?"

Yet, by the grace of faith we can accept the mystery of the Assumption, but what of living it? The mystery of the Assumption of Our Lady carries a message and invitation to our minds and to our bodies. For our minds the message and invitation is one of hope. The work of being transformed into more perfect images of Christ goes on in us daily. Often it is a painful process, a purification, as it were, by fire and heat. It is in preparation for the finishing touch of God when we will fully share, body and soul, in the Resurrection of Christ, and in His joy, which, He assures us, "no one will take from us." (Jn 16:22). Hope is a flower, but it is a flower, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, that can be blighted by two diseases, namely, lack of humility and lack of greatness of soul. That is a sentiment that is echoed in the writings of our Founders, but more so in the actions of their lives. Is the flower of hope withering in any of our communities? We would do well to look to our humility and to how we are manifesting greatness of soul daily.

What about the mystery of Our Lady's Assumption and our bodies? From our childhood we have been taught that our bodies are temples of the Spirit of God, and each day of our lives we cradle on our tongues the living body of Jesus Christ, our Lord and God. That is a great mystery which fails at times to cut into our consciousness, as we go about our daily work of serving others. Recently I read an observation of a celebrated and saintly Jewish Rabbi who wrote: "There are three ways in which we may respond to the reality of the world around us: we may exploit it, we may enjoy it, we may accept it with awe." (A. Heschel, God in Search of Man, p. 34).

The mystery of the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven invites us to accept our bodies with awe, knowing that we have been bought with a great price and knowing, too, that we are destined to be with the Risen Christ, Who has gone before us to prepare a place for us.

The paperweight of the Mother and Child on my desk keeps letters and loose pages from being blown hither and thither by chance breezes. How many times has the Mother of God stabilized us, when storms of one kind or another threaten our human and spiritual equilibrium. The thought is never far from my mind that, in placing paper under the metal image, Our Lady will take care of her Son's business. May the Divine Artist, Who created her, be praised, and may she be thanked.