Feast of the Assumption

15 August, 2006.
Celebration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

This is one of my favourite feast days in the liturgical calendar. Some ecumenically minded theologians consider this to be a divisive belief – that Mary, after death entered the glory of heaven in both body and spirit.

I think it is not just a celebration of Mary, nor is it exalting her beyond her humanity. It is, in a profound way a celebration of humanity and creation. It can only say something about Mary if it also has something to say about being a Christian. It is about our End.

Body:
A common criticism of Christianity is that it denigrates the human body and there have been times in our history that this is so. However, to hold matter in distain is to be unfaithful to the Scriptures. Creation, Incarnation and Resurrection are about matter, and in particular an exuberance of matter. God pouring out creation; God celebrating humanity in Flesh and a new outpouring of life in Jesus’ Rising. St. Bonaventure wrote of creation as the footprints of God. The Sacraments, and in particular the Eucharist celebrate and exist because we are embodied beings.

Without spirit the body is dead and in some way we yet don’t understand, without body the spirit is incomplete. The Christian belief in the resurrection of the body affirms that matter, which to our eyes seems finite and passing is of eternal significance and delight. How the New Creation will be when all is drawn together at the End, is a mystery even St. Paul could only suggest we wait and see.

However, in the Assumption we see a glimpse, a promise of our future. This woman, as human and finite as any of us grew, aged and died and because she lived in unshakable faith, faith that became enfleshed in her Son, she has been gifted as the first fruit of the Resurrection. In a very real sense, she is what we will be – alive in the fullness of God as a whole being, that is body, mind and spirit – all that makes her, and us the unique person she and each of us is.

The End:
Eschatology is not that esoteric field of theology that has little relevance for us in our daily lives nor is it just about heaven or hell. The End has happened in Jesus because his Resurrection shows the ultimate end of Creation and the human and in him the final, joyous wholeness has already happened.

It is timeless.

Therefore the power of the End, the fulfilment touches us at every moment and when we live with faith, love and hope and make choices as did Mary the power of the Risen life, the End-times grows in us and in all creation. The End that draws us to fulfilment is at the very heart of the human being who is open to the new, to something larger that themselves. Mary’s faithful agreement with God in the Annunciation finds its ending in God’s faithful agreement with Mary in giving her fully the fullness of Life.