The reasons why Her son preserved the Virgin Mary from old age.

One of the things that stands out is that neither in the apparitions nor in art, the Virgin Mary appears with the appearance of an old woman, because we clarify that she died at the age of 72 according to tradition.

Which leads us to wonder if Mary had indeed aged like all human beings, before her Assumption body and soul into Heaven.

Because Mary was not an ordinary human being like you or me, her conception was immaculate and preserved from sin.

And therefore the biological laws should not necessarily have been fulfilled in Her as in us.

Here we will talk about the ageless aspect that Mary is portrayed, and the reasons why she did not suffer the corruption of sin, which is expressed in the aging, sickness and death that happens to all human beings.

When Our Lady appears on earth as the Virgin of Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, etc., she is always shown as a very young woman, even in some cases as an adolescent.

And the Gospels present Mary to us as a girl, young and virgin, who will be the Mother of Jesus.

From the stories of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke we can infer that the Virgin had had a normal physical development; she had been a baby, a girl, and now a young lady.

But what happened next?

Tradition affirms that Our Lady died at the age of 72, so logic leads us to suppose that she should have had wrinkles, gray hair and the ailments of age.

And we must also consider that the physique and health of a person in the first century, at that age, was not like now, in which people live longer and with a better quality of life.

In other words, Our Lady’s body at the end of her life should have been even more ailing than that of a person in our century.

But also in art we find that the Virgin almost always looks young.

So how is it possible if she died aged 72?

How can it be that she has not aged and is presented in appearances and art as a young woman?

Is this way of presenting it for aesthetic reasons, because it is always more attractive to show a young person than an old person?

Or perhaps there are theological reasons that lead to this?

Or is it simply a reflection of reality itself, that the Blessed Virgin did not age like the rest of human beings , as Casañ suggests?

Joaquin Casañ in his magnificent work the Life of the Virgin Mary, where he compiles a huge amount of information, tells us about the death of Saint Joseph at the age of sixty, adding that he was thirty-three when he married the Blessed Virgin.

At the death of Joseph, Mary was forty-one years old, because at fourteen she was married to Saint Joseph.

And it says that at that age of 41, Mary had the same natural perfection as at thirty-three, because she neither regressed, nor grew old, nor fainted from that most perfect state.

Thirty-three years is the age at which Jesus Christ died and is considered the age of perfection.

And it has been considered that it is the age that our glorious bodies will have for eternity.

And how could this have been?

We must consider that aging, disease and death entered the world through original sin.

We all have this stain, which is why we get old, sick and die.

However, the Virgin was the only human being who was not included in the original sin.

And if Mary did not have sin, then she did not have the physical evolution of the rest of the people, nor the aspects that are a consequence of original sin.

Specifically, she could not have aged or died.

This is well explained by Blessed Duns Scotus, who stated that Mary had been preserved from sin, being saved by Our Lord in a preventative way.

Because there are two ways to save man: one by preventing and the other by rescuing.

If Jesus is the perfect mediator, he had to be able to redeem man in a perfect way, also preventing.

It is what explains why the scriptures say that She was full of grace, which should also be shown in her physical appearance, which should be that of a young woman.

This happened because of Her Immaculate Conception.

That it is a dogma of faith proclaimed in 1854, which maintains that the Virgin Mary was free from original sin from the first moment of her conception, through the merits of Her son Jesus Christ.

Christ preserved her in an extraordinary way and granted her a sanctity that she did not achieve on her own.

And she did it for the sake of her mission, a mission that only she could carry out, that is, to be the Mother of God.

This was required by the holiness of Christ and the honor of God.

And what about Maria’s death?

Because if original sin is the cause of death, since Mary did not have it, then she should not have died.

However, although she had no original sin, she wanted to imitate her Son in everything, including death.

And she wanted to imitate him so much that, according to ancient accounts, the Virgin dies on a Friday, August 13, and her Assumption is on Sunday the 15th, that is, the same number of days between the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

However, Mary did not die of a physical cause or illness, but of love.

St. John Damascene says that the Mother of God did not die of illness, because she did not have to receive the punishment of illness for not having original sin.

Nor did she die of old age, because she did not have to grow old , since the punishment of the sin of the first parents did not come to her: to grow old and end due to weakness.

She died of love, she wanted so much to go to heaven where her Son was, that this love made her die.

The need to see her Son again was so great that she simply fell asleep, which is why Eastern Christians speak of the Virgin Mary’s dormancy or transit.

And since Mary’s body could not be corrupted if she died, because that only happens because of original sin, then Jesus went ahead and took her to Heaven body and soul, the Assumption.

Some time before her death, according to an Eastern text attributed to Saint John the Evangelist, the Archangel Gabriel approached Mary while she was praying in the Holy Sepulchre.

And told her that her earthly life had come to an end.

Then She let the Apostles know that the date of leaving this world for eternity was approaching.

Saint John Damascene, one of the last apostolic fathers, tells us that the apostles hurried to Jerusalem, which was the place where the Virgin was.

The Eastern text of St. John says that the apostles saw how the face of Mary shone brighter than light, rose and blessed each of the apostles with her own hand, and they all gave glory to God.

And the Lord extended His spotless hands, and received his holy and spotless soul.

The apostles laid her holy body on a bed, and carried it to the Garden of Gethsemane, where they placed it in a new tomb.

Saint John Damascene says that at the moment of her death, the angelic choirs gave a concert.

It was three days that the angelic choirs were heard.

And on the third day Saint Thomas the Apostle arrived, who as always was late, and asked to see the Virgin.

They opened the Holy Sepulcher of Our Lady and a very pleasant perfume came out.

And the only thing they found were the sheets from the burial.

At that moment they understood that the Virgin had been taken before the rest to Heaven, first in soul and then in body.

And it is also said that Saint Thomas had the grace to see the Virgin during her Assumption and gave her the belt that he had worn in life.

On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven body and soul.

Whose text says that 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.

You should note that saying “having completed the course of her earthly life” is ambiguous and thus allows for the possibility that Mary may not have died before her Assumption, because this is a matter of dispute.

Tradition has always indicated that Mary did die, but of love and not due to aging, although Catholics are not forced to believe it dogmatically.

All this that we have told is the explanation why Our Lady has not aged during her earthly life nor has she died of old age.

Glory to God in his angels and saints. Amen