Faith: The Assumption of Mary

Birds in flight, on Assumption Thursday 2013.

Mary is THE Mother figure in our Catholic faith, because she represents all women, the one woman who, above all others, understands the most a woman's particular pains: they begin at labor and continue as she suffers and cares for her family until the end of her life. Women don't get a lot of help in the Old Testament (the book that is the Torah in Judaism), but the New Testament casts us in a slightly better light. We still have to be sacrificial virgins, but the good news is it's an angel who gives the news to Mary that the Almighty Force of the Universe is the baby daddy, and that instead of a bloody sacrifice, Mary is risen body and soul into His Arms in Heaven. Oh. 

Plane in flight, on Assumption Thursday.

It kinda makes our every day pains seems trivial, right? But that's what the really big myths do. They cast our woes into perspective by showing us that throughout human time, women have always had big burdens to bear, because we bear the entire human race. That's a big deal, and we have the holidays to honor this essential truth: the most important thing we have in this world (and the next) is love, because love is the answer, and the power of a mother's love is the love that drives this whole ship called Earth. Honor her well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary