A husband and wife I know often find themselves in little disputes about minor things.  One of them is convinced that all of their arguments reduce to a basic difference in their outlook.  “One of us,” this person says, “presumes the worst—in people, in situations, in life!  And the other of us assumes the best!”

Wouldn’t the world be nicer if we espoused the latter attitude?  When we expect and look for the best in ourselves and others, more often than not we foster and find it.  Assuming the best in people usually results in its discovery and in its amplification.  It makes us better, too, as we abandon gossip, excessive criticism, and attitudes that divide and diminish.

When God beheld Mary, he beheld the best that human nature could offer—a woman perfectly and preveniently redeemed by the grace of Christ, wholly receptive and acquiescent to God’s will.  She began that way, preserved as she was from original sin in her Immaculate Conception, and she lived her whole life that way by her own cooperation.  God rightly could always assume the best in her.

The grace that Mary received at her conception anticipated the grace we receive in Baptism and Eucharist and the other sacraments.  That grace makes us capable of our best, and allows the assumption of the best in others, too.  Redeemed in Christ, we can “put on Christ;” that is, we can assume the best ourselves.  And we can assume the best in others.

We can also assume that the fullness of life that Christ possesses in his human nature and promises to his disciples is shared first and foremost with Mary.  He literally assumes the best in admitting her to the fullness of life with him.  And her Assumption, body and soul into heaven, helps us to see the world and life differently—as a place where grace reigns, where goodness and virtue can be the norm, and where heaven is ultimately possible for all of us.