A Reflection for the Assumption of the BVM (Year C).
Revelation 11:19; 12:1-6, 10 – 1Corinthians 15:20-26 – Luke 1:39-56.
The Solemnity of the Assumption celebrates the glorious reward that the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, received immediately after the end of her earthly life. The teaching of the Church, held by the faithful for centuries and confirmed by Pope Pius XII in 1950, is that at the end of her earthly life Our Lady was assumed body and soul straight into Heaven because she is the Mother of God. She has no grave. The Assumption draws us to meditate on (and to ponder ever more deeply) the events of her life from her Immaculate Conception through to the point of her physical death, and why it was that her body was assumed into heaven instead of being laid in the grave like the bodies of all the other saints. This great feast day was placed on the calendar during the harvest season in order to remind us that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Queen of the great heavenly harvest to be gathered in at the end of time by her beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
By the term ‘assumption,’ the Church means that Mary, the Mother of God, was taken up body and soul into heaven at the conclusion of her earthly life. There are no relics of hers for us to venerate. Modern medicine has discovered that some of a child’s DNA remains in the mother’s bloodstream even after she’s given birth, and remains present for the rest of her life. When Our Lady died, her Son’s DNA was still in her body. Think about it: He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, and Our Lady – who gave Him His blood after His conception by the Holy Spirit – carried an element of Him within her for the rest of her physical life. It follows that her body wasn’t going to remain on earth, any more than her Son’s was. At the point of her physical death, her body was not allowed to decay but was raised like her Son’s from earth to heaven.
May I invite you to reflect upon Mary as the lifelong presence and the loyal figure of stability in Jesus’ earthly life. Conceived without original sin, her sole aim in life was to please God. She willingly accepted the archangel Gabriel’s invitation from God the Father to become the Mother of the Son of God, and she became the spouse of the Holy Spirit when the Child was conceived in her. She cooperated with her Son throughout His life on earth, and thereafter she continued to play a major role in the early Church. She looked after the Holy Family, no doubt rolling up her sleeves and doing the cooking and cleaning for them, and she was always there for Jesus and St Joseph. Like our lives, Her life was not exempt from ups and downs, highs and lows. Mary experienced unfathomable joy at the Annunciation, at Jesus’ Nativity, and at the Ascension as she witnessed Her Son’s rise to glory. Old Simeon warned her to expect the most profound depths of suffering when she presented Jesus in the temple. She was without Jesus for three days until she finally found Him in the temple, speaking with the doctors of the Law… His Law! She was there for Him as He carried His Cross, and she was there at the foot of the Cross as He offered His life and poured out His Blood in sacrifice for us.
As a young woman, Our Lady was saluted reverently as royalty by the archangel Gabriel. Though she was troubled by the greeting (Lk 1:29), her mind was focused on obeying God’s Will for her. Her answer was, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.’ (Lk 1:38). In all humility, she was open to accepting God’s invitation and Will for her. We should be so too.
As Mary, bearing the Lord Jesus within her, stepped across the threshold of Elizabeth’s house to look after her elderly cousin bearing St John the Baptist within her, Elizabeth exclaimed out of sheer joy, “Why should I be honoured with a visit from the Mother of my Lord?” (Lk 1:43). Elizabeth was the first to announce to the world that the Messiah was present – and within Mary! Today’s Solemnity reminds us that God honours those in whom He dwells. As the psalmist puts it, The Lord will not allow his holy one to see corruption (Ps 16:10). In the same way, if we make a home for Jesus in our own life, we join those destined for the transformation of the body, as Mary’s was, in the glory of Heaven.
What message do we take from all this? It is that the Assumption reminds us that we too have been created by God to reach Heaven someday. We declare in the Creed that we believe in the resurrection of the dead and in the life of the world to come. We have the hope and expectation that we, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, shall enter eternal life when our earthly life ends. We will be raised body and soul. Our body won’t be exactly like this physical body; it will be a spiritual body. St Paul asserted that What is planted is perishable. What is raised up is imperishable (1Cor 15:42). He compared the human body before death to a seed, and the body after death to the plant that grows from the seed. A seed planted in the ground doesn’t sprout unless and until its outer structure dies and is shed.
Mary is in Heaven from where she constantly intercedes for us. She is there for us, and she assists us in our struggles through life. It is my prayer that our hope in the resurrection of the dead, and in life everlasting in God, will be nourished and revitalized through the celebration of this Solemnity. May we ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, assumed into Heaven, to pray for us. Amen. God bless you.