Today is the Assumption of Our Lady. The reading, today from the Customary of OLW (the Ordinariate office book) was from Revelations of Divine Love by Lady Julian of Norwich:

“And with this same appearance of mirth and joy our good Lord looked down on his right and brought to mind where our Lady stood at the time of his Passion and he said “Do you wish to see her? And these sweet words were as if he had said, “I know well that you wish to see my blessed mother, for after myself, she is the greatest joy that I could show you, and the greatest delight and honour to me, and she is what all my blessed creatures most desire to see. And because of the wonderful, exalted and singular love that he has for this sweet maiden, his blessed mother, our Lady Saint Mary, he reveals her bliss and joy through the sense of those sweet words, as if he had said , “Do you wish to see how I love her, so that you could rejoice with me in the love which I have in her and she has in me?”

And for greater understanding of these sweet words our good Lord speaks in love to all mankind who will be saved, addressing them all as one person, as if he said, “Do you wish to see in her how you are loved? It is for love of you that that I have made her so exalted, so noble, so honourable; and this delights me. And I wish it to delight you.” For next to him, she is the most blissful to be seen. But in this matter I was not taught to long to see her bodily presence while I am here, but the virtues of her blessed soul, her truth, her wisdom, her love, through which I am taught to know myself and reverently to fear my God.

And when our good Lord had revealed this, and said these words: “Do you wish to see her? I answered and said “Yes good Lord, great thanks, yes good Lord, if it be your will. Often times I had prayed for this, and I had expected to see her in bodily likeness; but I did not see her so. And Jesus, saying this showed me a spiritual vision of her. Just as before I had seen her small and simple, now he showed her high and noble and glorious and more pleasing to him than all creatures. And he wishes it to be known that all who take delight in him should take delight in her, and in the delight that he has in her and she in him.”

I was particularly struck by the line “Do you wish to see in her how you are loved? It is for love of you that that I have made her so exalted, so noble, so honourable; and this delights me. And I wish it to delight you.” Happy Feast of the Assumption!