The Assumption
of Our Lady
(Revelation
11:19; 12:1-6, 10; 1 Corinthians 15:20-27; Luke 1: 39-56)
Let us hear first of
all the official, dogmatic, teaching of Mother Church about Our Lady’s
Assumption which we joyfully celebrate today.
The dogma proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in 1950 is quoted in our modern
Catholic Catechism and reads as follows:
The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when
the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into
heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she
might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror
of sin and death.
The Catechism goes
on to explain:
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her
Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians.
That means that
Mary’s Assumption was not achieved of her own power neither was it due to her
own merits: it was a gift, a unique share in the power of Jesus’ Resurrection,
given her thanks to the merits of Jesus Who -- though human in body and soul --
was divine in His Person, the very Son of God made flesh, Who alone could win
the victory over sin and death for the whole of mankind. Having won that victory in the flesh and
blood He received from Mary, the Assumption is the expression of Mary’s unique
participation in her Son’s triumph and her unique sharing in the Redemption He
won for all mankind.
The Assumption is
supremely significant because Mary, though the Mother of God, totally unique in
her persoanl relationship with Jesus and in her participation in His redeeming
work, nevertheless, remained one with us, one of us, totally human in her body,
soul, and personality: Mary of Nazareth our glory indeed, but also our
sister. And consequently, being thus our
full sister, her Assumption is a sign of hope for all of us, a sign that we too
might aspire, in the Spirit, to share with her in Jesus’ redemptive
Resurrection.
Jesus wanted very
much to underline the oneness between us and Mary, His Mother, as we can learn
from His somewhat startling response to her on a very public occasion:
His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him,
calling Him. And a multitude was sitting
around Him; and they said to Him, "Look, Your mother and Your brothers are
outside seeking You." But He
answered them, saying, "Who is My mother, or My brothers?" And He looked around in a circle at those who
sat about Him, and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My
brother and My sister and mother." (Mark 3:31-35)
Evidently, He willed
to make it clear for subsequent generations that Mary was no goddess, nor was she
ever to be thought of as being other than one of us. And yet, as St. John tells us, Jesus -- with
what were almost His very last words as He hung, dying, on the Cross -- chose
to give supreme emphasis to the reverence and love that all who would be His
disciples should have for her:
Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister,
Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved
standing by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" Then He said to the disciple, "Behold
your mother!" (John 19:25-27)
Therefore, when
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory, it
was not simply for Mary herself; for she is our sister whom we might hope to
follow, and much more, she is, indeed, our very mother, whom – being given to
us by Jesus as His ultimate bequest from the Cross -- we can be sure will be a
most constant advocate and ever-watchful help to us who have been handed over
to her spiritual solicitude and maternal care.
In that way we are most surely encouraged to have sure confidence and
firm hope that if we prove to be faithful disciples of Jesus to the end, we can
and will eventually follow Our Lord heavenward and share in His glory, just as
she, our dear sister and revered mother, has already done.
The dogma of the
Assumption was, as I said, promulgated in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. It was nothing new; it had been loved,
meditated and celebrated in the Church from the earliest times. It was at the beginning of the 5thC.
that what had been traditionally celebrated as her Dormition or sleeping in
earthly death, became rather the celebration of her “birthday”: her birth into
heavenly life, that is, her Assumption.
There are apocryphal stories written early in the history of the Church
telling of the death of Mary, how her body was buried under the tree of life,
and how she was translated into heaven.
Some scholars think these stories arose after the feast started to be
celebrated; others, however, think the first of the apocryphal tales go back to
the earliest times, and that there was probably an immemorial veneration of the
tomb of Mary in Jerusalem by early Jewish converts to Christianity.
Such stories
however, although picturesque, sometimes moving, or even instructive, are not
the basis of our present faith which rests securely on the ancient devotion and
approved worship of the Church, in accordance with the teaching of the
Scriptures and under the perennial guidance of the Spirit.
Whenever the body of
a disciple of Jesus and child of the Church is brought into church the night
before burial we read the Gospel passage which goes:
Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in
Me. In My Father's house are many mansions;
if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:1-2)
There, at the Last
Supper, Jesus was speaking to His sorrowing disciples in order to comfort them
in their distress at the thought of His imminent Passion and Death. Think how Jesus must have willed above all to
comfort His Mother in her distress: surely, first and foremost, He would want
and will to prepare a place for her!
And where would that
place be? The disciples were distressed
that Jesus was going to be taken from them, and so Jesus promised:
If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to
Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. (John 14:3)
Who more than Mary
longed to be where Jesus was? Who had
cherished Him so dearly, nurtured Him so carefully, supported Him so
selflessly; who had followed Him so faithfully and with such sympathy
throughout His whole public ministry; who like Mary had shared the opprobrium
heaped upon Him by so many, and who like Mary had experienced and appreciated
His loneliness and abandonment standing below and beside Him as he died on the
Cross?
Again, Jesus prayed
most solemnly at the Last Supper:
Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am,
that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before
the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)
Now who,
conceivably, could long to see the glory of her Son more than His Mother; and,
indeed, who deserve more fittingly than her, to share it?
However, all such
considerations are included in, and embraced by, these other words of Jesus:
If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant
will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honour. (John 12:26)
Mary’s whole life
with her Son was, indeed, a life of total and whole-hearted love and service,
given directly and personally to Jesus from the moment of His conception. And yet, even that, is not the sum total of
Mary’s commitment to and sharing with Jesus throughout her life on earth, for,
just as St. Peter, writing (1 Peter 4:14) to the early Christians threatened
with persecution by the Roman State, said:
If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the
Spirit of glory and of God rests on you;
so too, we are told
of Mary that she was blessed with the Spirit of glory and of God resting on her
from the beginning of her motherhood, that is, she was blessed with the
ability, and called to embrace the opportunity, to share with her Son in all
His endeavours and sufferings.
This was made clear
to her in the Temple at Jerusalem, when, together with St. Joseph -- and with
her heart surely filled with ecstatic joy and gratitude to God – she was
presenting her Son to the Lord, a Temple priest, Simeon by name, approached
them, and, we are told :
Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, "Behold, this Child
is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which
will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also),
that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:34-35)
Yes, Mary would
follow her Son unswervingly to the end, until He died, before her very eyes on
the Cross; and even then, her sufferings for Him were not over, since she was
further called to participate most intimately in the early trials and turmoil
of His nascent Church.
The fact is that
Jesus, in all that He did, carried with Him and worked in and through, the
flesh and blood that Mary had uniquely given Him. She was so intimately one with Him in all
that He did, in and through His sacred humanity; and that is why she alone has
been so uniquely honoured by the Father that she is now where Jesus is, in
heaven!. Jesus, bearing Mary’s flesh,
died, was buried, and rose again; therefore, Mary too, in her flesh died, was
buried, and then -- thanks to her Son’s Personal holiness and Divine majesty --
knowing no corruption just as she had known no sin, was raised to share with
Him His heavenly glory.
People of God, let
us, therefore, rejoice on the occasion of this solemn feast, and repeat with
heartfelt joy the words of Mary herself:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my
Saviour; for He has looked with favour on His lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me
blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. (Luke 1:46-49)
Having praised God
in the first outpouring of her soul, Mary then spoke words of ultimate comfort
of her children, words which afford us both confidence and courage as we strive
to serve and follow Jesus our Lord and Saviour:
He has mercy on those who fear Him in every generation.
The Assumption of
Mary is still for us, in this the third millennium, a source of inspiration and
of hope; for the arm of the Lord is not shortened, His mercy and love are
eternal. What was given to Mary was
given her uniquely indeed, but not exclusively, for it was intended also for
us, ‘those who fear Him from generation to generation’. Let us, therefore, as her children, treasure
and take to heart the words Elizabeth used to characterize our mother:
Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfilment of those things
which were told her from the Lord.
