Assumption 2024
I hope you will not be shocked if I say that sometimes the liturgy of the Church is like a good film. You have the image, the sound, and even the subtitles. This, at least, is the way today’s readings appear to me this year as we contemplate and celebrate Our Lady’s Assumption.
The first reading from the Apocalypse gives the image. After eleven chapters filled with images and symbols, the text suddenly announces that “a great portent appeared in heaven”. The show is perfect, and you cannot get bored. There is always something new to look at. Now is the time for a woman to appear. We have seen animals and angels and prophets and elders. This seems to be the first female figure in this book; by no means a little one: she is “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”. She has the size of the creation and the attributes of the primordial light. She is the Lady Wisdom of the Old Testament, who is God’s feminine companion in His work of creation and salvation. She is with child because she shares in God’s joy, which is to give life.
The image of the mother in heaven fits Mary’s Assumption well. She, too, is a mother. She, too, cooperates in the birth of God’s children, the sisters and brothers of her Son. She, too, after her discrete presence on earth, is now manifested to the whole world and takes on her full stature. Mary is little and great. She is little with Jesus in the abasement of His incarnation, and she is great with Jesus when she follows him in the exaltation of His Ascension, when He fills the universe. She is supple and flexible, attuned to the Wisdom and the Spirit of the Creator. She adjusts herself to those who turn to her: simple and humble with us sinners, she shares the full glory of her Son.
Now that we have the image of the Virgin in heaven, we find the sound in the Gospel. This is no less that the very voice of Mary singing her Magnificat! Mary’s canticle of praise accompanies her at all the steps of her journey, from the conception of Jesus to her own Assumption into heaven. The sound is very important for it helps us to understand the image rightly. Mary’s voice speaks of God who was great in her, of God who is great in Jesus, of God who wants to be great in the poor and the little ones, of God who is faithful to His friend Abraham, of God whose love for the people of Israel is for ever. In other words, Mary’s presence in the light praises the Light that God is. Placed on the highest throne in heaven, she sings for ever the mercies of the Lord; she praises; she gives glory to God.
Mary’s Assumption is the most powerful signpost to what life in heaven is – and will be. Heaven is God’s glory acknowledged and praised by creatures who have been blessed with a share in God’s life. Heaven is God become “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). God is all in Mary. She is Nothing in Him. The encounter of this Nothing and this All was God’s project from the beginning, when He created Adam and Eve and blessed them. It has been Mary’s desire for ever. It is the desire of all believers who learn to use the present world which passes in such a way that they already belong to God’s world without end. The sound and the music of today’s Feast are the sound and the music of God’s plan accomplished in Mary, and of Mary’s desire fulfilled.
It remains for St Paul to give us the subtitles. Through faith we certainly have some knowledge and anticipation of heaven. However, we are like those people who have a certain knowledge of a foreign language, enough to get by, not enough to be absolutely sure they have understood rightly. St Paul explains everything. Christ’s resurrection was a beginning. The resurrection of the dead is meant to be eventually everyone’s lot. In Jesus’ resurrection, there is life for all and for everyone; first for Christ, and then for those who belong to Christ. Then, all the glory goes to the Father.
Thanks to St Paul, the vison acquires, as it were, a new depth. Mary glorifies Jesus, her Son risen from the dead who raises her up and wishes to raise us all up with her. Jesus, in turn, glorifies His Father: God the Father. We are thus given a glimpse of heaven’s life. We see life coming out from the Father to the Son, and from God to the creatures, and we hear praise coming back to Christ from all creatures led by Mary, and from Christ the Son to the Father. We contemplate God’s life and glory – even if we still need the subtitles.
Dear Brethren, this is life in the full; this is real life. This is the measure and the style the Holy Spirit gives to our Christian lives: a Marian style, soul and body attuned to God, to His love, to His life which is conqueror of death. This is our challenge, too: we must let God’s glory be victorious in our souls and our bodies, at whatever cost, through whatever struggles. Above all, this is our joyful hope, for the Woman in heaven sings for ever God’s mercies, thus inviting us to trust God’s mercy and to dare to expect from God’s mercy no less than God Himself: God in us and we in God, as He is today in Mary and Mary in the God. To the Blessed Trinity glory for ever. Amen.