Sursum corda! Lift up your hearts!

Juan Martin Cabezalero was born in 1645 (not in 1634 as indicated by the Prado Museum). Had it not been for his premature death in 1673, at the age of twenty-eight, he would have become one of the greatest painters in Spanish history. Indeed, he had received such promising gifts and talents that, if he had lived, he would have lit up the twilight of the Golden Age like the setting sun. The exceptional quality of this Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, painted in 1665 when he was twenty years old, brilliantly testifies to his genius. 

When you view this masterpiece, you can’t tell what you should admire the most: the dynamic opening of the space toward the highest heavens? The exquisite fluidity of the brush strokes? The eloquent facial expressions? Above all, the most original manifestation of Cabezalero’s precocious genius is found in his treatment of light, which allows him to bring the movement of the figures to life. Thus the whole composition appears to be endowed with a perpetual dynamism, as though animated in the physical as well as in the spiritual sense. 

And then, what words can describe the altogether simple, transparent splendor of the Virgin Mary in her glorious Assumption? By what artistic gift does the painter manage to let us contemplate in this way the most beautiful of the daughters of Eve as she truly is? The reason she seems to us so eminently moving, without being in the least seductive, is that the painter understood that what makes her beautiful is precisely that she is younger than sin.

In order to recreate this scene of the Assumption in a way that edifies the faithful, Cabezalero takes his inspiration primarily from a text by Saint John Damascene, an Arab apologist who died in 749 in the Monastery of Mar Saba, near Jerusalem. This text repeats the oldest traditions, some of which may go back to the 2^nd century: Mary died surrounded by the apostles, who miraculously had gathered at her bedside from the four corners of the earth where they were serving as missionaries. She was placed in the tomb. Three days later, Thomas arrived—the one who was never there when he was supposed to be. For him they opened the sarcophagus, but it was empty. The apostles understood that Mary had been taken up to heaven. This source was probably supplemented by another 7_^th-century text, the Panegyric for the Feast of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God, which explains: “The spotless body of the Most Blessed Virgin and her all-pure soul, beloved of God, were taken up into heaven, escorted by the angels.” Recall that the dogma formulated by Pius XII in 1950 simply says: “The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” (Munificentissimus Deus, 44). 

Thomas—never there when he was supposed to be

Here then is the open tomb. In front of it the viewer recognizes in the foreground, in a red cloak, Saint Thomas, still unbelieving; just as he placed his hand in the side of the risen Lord, he now puts his hand into the tomb to make sure that it is indeed empty. To his left, a young man has just taken in his hand the roses without thorns that he found in the sarcophagus, in the place designated for the mortal remains of the Mother of God. He saw and believed: Mary conceived without sin, the Mystical Rose without thorns, was carried to heaven to be crowned there the Flos florum, Queen of the flowers of Paradise. Behind Saint John, Saint Peter has his complete attention fixed on heaven. The painter is clearly inviting us to follow his example, so that, lifting up our eyes and heart to heaven, we can contemplate with him the Flower of life, the New Eve, glorified in the mystery of her Assumption. 

In the ascending dynamic of this great mystery, let us not doubt it, the Mother of God is more than ever our Mother. She personally, depicted here as lifted up in the highest heavens by the angels, holds the sum total of the prayers entrusted to her intercession until the end of time, now being brought to the heart of God. The fruit of the mystery of the Assumption is therefore invincible confidence: nothing is more reasonable than to believe in the efficacy of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s intercession. Indeed, even if hypothetically Jesus could refuse her something (to suppose the impossible), we must not forget that when she asks her Son and our Brother for a grace on our behalf, she always does it with the authority of a mother who, as she did in Cana, knows in advance that her prayer has been granted. 

Yes, let us never forget that. And especially not at the hour of our death. 

Pierre-Marie Dumont

The Assumption (c. 1665), Juan Martín Cabezalero (1645–1673), Prado Museum, Madrid. © akg-images / Album.