Why did her Son leave her behind to suffer so intensely, as He well knew she would, from the separation? Would not the Beatific Vision in Heaven have been better than her Communions on earth? Could not her intercession for the Church have been even more effectual had she been close to her Son's throne in Heaven? Could she not have been the Mother of Good Counsel in Heaven for those who had to guide the Church in its infancy, as she has been ever since? We can think of many reasons why JESUS left her in exile for a time:-- 1. She had to _nurse the new-born Church_ by strengthening and encouraging the Apostles with her example, so like that of the Master Himself, and by supplying the Evangelists with many details of His life, which they could not have learnt from any lips but hers. 2. She had to _establish her position_ as Mother of the Church--the tradition was to be handed down by the Apostles that it was _she_ who guided, and tended, and cared for the Church during the early and tender years of its existence; that it was to her they turned in times of perplexity and doubt; that her constant intercession for them was their strength. This could not have been so had she left the earth with her Son. During those long years of exile the new child learnt to regard Mary as its Mother, and when she was taken away into Heaven, it was quite natural to it still thus to regard her, and to teach all who came after to do the same. 3. Our Lord would give her still more time to _increase her merits_ by suffering. He wanted her crown to be the most beautiful possible, and even for the Mother of GOD there was only one way to make it so--the way of suffering, which intensified her love and humility and submission to GOD'S will. 4. May not another reason have been in order that she might be the _better able to sympathise_ with the exiled children of Eve (_exules filii Evæ_)? Had He taken her with Him, they would surely have felt that their Mother could not quite understand their position. And what is such an effectual barrier to sympathy as the feeling that we are not understood? So Mary was left in exile to gain much that she could not have gained otherwise. I am one of the exiled children of Eve. What have _I_ got to do as an exile?