Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings: Rev 11:19a.12:1-6a.10ab; Ps 45:10-12.16; 1 Cor 15:20-27; Luke 1:39-56

We sometimes lose sight of just how audacious it is to be a Christian. For example, going with the flow, we’ll say or agree to things like: “Death is natural.” Christians should have the audacity to insist “There’s nothing natural about death!” We were not born to die. We were created and redeemed to live forever.

As philosopher Heidegger explored in his magnum opus Being and Time, death is the horizon over which we cannot see. I am deeply suspicious of claims to know the afterlife in the vivid detail in which some describe it. Besides, most such claims amount to an idealized continuation of earthly life.

Contrast claims of detailed knowledge about life after death with Saint Paul who, quoting third Isaiah, insists: “’no eye has seen… no ear has heard, and… no human mind has conceived’ -- the things God has prepared for those who love him.”¹ But revelation, handed on by means of both scripture and tradition, gives us some glimpses over the horizon of death. Maybe just enough to whet our appetite, to channel our desire.

This is the point Saint Paul makes so explicitly in our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians when he writes- “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”² One way to understand the read, seven-headed dragon in our second reading is as death. By his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ destroyed death. This is what the Solemnity of our Blessed Mother’s Assumption is all about.

Christians have celebrated the Holy Mother of God being bodily assumed into heaven practically from the beginning of the Church. 15 August is the day Christians both East and West, including many Protestant communions that follow the liturgical calendar, have celebrated this wondrous event. Rather than being a divisive factor among Christians, our Blessed Mother, as mothers tend to do, brings us together.

Mary, Jesus’ Mother, is the model disciple because in her fiat, her “Yes!,” to what God asked of her. By saying to the archangel, “May it be done to me according to your word,” she committed herself wholly and completely to God, with all that meant. She was given a glimpse of what this meant when old man Simeon, whom she encountered in the Temple when her son was but eight days old, predicted what Jesus himself understood:

Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed³

Jesus’s Presentation in the Temple is the third Glorious Mystery of the Rosary. The fruit of this mystery is obedience to God, which means, what Mary understood through her experience: hope is realized through suffering. Ultimate hope is realized through death. As probably all of us know from our own experience, this is a painful realization. This is why we pray to Mary with these words from the Salve Regina:

To thee do we cry,
Poor banished children of Eve;
To thee do we send up our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears

We are not here this evening to worship the Virgin Mary. While we do not worship her, we do recognize the special place she occupies in God’s economy of salvation. This humble “nobody” from backwards Nazareth indicates this herself in our Gospel reading for today’s solemnity.

In response to her kinswoman Elizabeth’s Spirit-filled greeting, Miriam of Nazareth sings the canticle we now call her Magnificat. This lovely song begins:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed⁴

Again, while we do not gather to worship Mary, we do gather, as have nearly all generations of Christians, to call her blessed. It is clear Christian teaching, rooted in the first commandment and reiterated in our Lord’s two great commandments that we worship God- Father, Son, and Spirit- and God alone. We venerate the saints, those holy women and men who show what following Christ looks like in every age, including our own.

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by Guido Reni, ca. 1642

Between worship, the Greek name for which is latria, and veneration, technically called dulia, is the category of hyperdulia. Latria is due to God. Dulia is due the saints. Hyperdulia, which means what it sounds like, super- or turbocharged dulia or veneration, which does not rise to the level of worship. To Mary, the Mother of God, and her alone, do we super-venerate.

Mary’s Bodily Assumption into heaven is the fourth Glorious Mystery of her Most Holy Rosary. The fruit of this mystery is the grace of a happy death. Getting back to my first point, what can a “happy death” possibly be?

As no doubt our Blessed Mother, along with Saint Paul, understood, the grace of a happy death is dying knowing that because of Jesus Christ death is not the end. Hence, death is a transitus, meaning a passage or a crossing over, not from life to death, but from death into life eternal. The resurrection will be the completion of this transitus.

We should meditate on the great mysteries of our faith often, even daily. So, use the Rosary as the great instrument of grace that it is. By means of it, bring your intercessions before your Mother, confident she will intercede for you.

Once again, I urge you to memorize the Memorare. Pray this prayer often. When someone asks you to pray for them or for an intention they have, commit it to the Blessed Virgin through her Memorare. Use it to entrust her with your own prayers and intentions.

Let’s end our reflection on this great mystery of our faith with the Memorare. If you know it, pray it along with me:

Remember, O most blessed Virgin Mary,
that never was it known
that anyone who fled to thy protection,
implored thy help,
or sought thy intercession,
was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence
I fly unto thee,
O Virgin of virgins, my Mother.
To thee I come,
before thee I stand,
sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in thy mercy hear and answer me.
Amen

To this, let’s add:

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now
and at the hour of our death

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1 1 Corinthians 2:9.^↩
2 1 Corinthians 15:26.^↩
3 Luke 2:34-35.^↩
4 Luke 1:46-48.^↩