We know that there was no way for the disciples to avoid the pain of the going of Jesus. It was not the same sort of pain that they felt now, as they gazed up from the hill top to the cloud drifting into the distance, as the pain that had been theirs as they hurried trembling and affrighted through the streets of Jerusalem on the afternoon of the Crucifixion. This pain had no sting of remorse for a duty undone, or of fear for a danger to be met. It was the calm pain of love in the realisation that the parting is final. We know that among the group that watched the receding cloud the eyes that would linger longest and would find it hardest to turn away would be those of the Blessed Mother. Her mission about our Lord during all these past years had been a very characteristically womanly mission, a mission of silence and help and sympathy. She was with the women who ministered to Him, never obtrusive, never self-assertive; but always ready when need was. It was the silent service of a great love. That is the perfection of service. There are types of service which claim reward or recognition. We are not unfamiliar in the work of the Kingdom with people who have to be cajoled and petted and made much of because of what they do. Verily, they have their reward. But the type we are considering, of which the Blessed Mother is the highest expression, is without thought of self, being wholly lost in the wonder of being permitted to serve God at all. To be permitted to give one's time and personal ministry to our Lord in His Kingdom and in His members is so splendid a grace of God that all thought of self is lost in the joy of it. We know that S. Mary could have had no other thought than the offering of her love in whatever way it was permitted to express itself; and we know that the quality of that love was such that the moment of the ascension would have left her desolate, watching the cloud that veiled Him from her eyes. All of which does not mean that we are wrong when we speak of the ascension as one of the "Glorious Mysteries" of S. Mary. There we are viewing it in its wide bearing as S. Mary would come to view it in a short while. When the meaning of the ascension became plain, when under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, S. Mary was able to view her Son as "the One Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," when she was able to think of the human nature that God had taken from her as permanently enthroned in heaven,--then would all this be to her creative of intense joy. We, seeing so clearly what the ascension essentially meant, can think of it as a mystery of intense joy, but as our Lord passed away from sight the passing would for the moment be one last stab of the sword through this so-often wounded heart.