There are so many ideas, visions of the Assumption of Mary. The images of her Assumption into heaven that most see are from paintings, pictures of Mary rising up through the clouds surrounded by flocks of angels.
Even though these pictures stir the imagination and get us all to think about Mary’s Assumption into heaven, one thing is clear, our relationship with Mary our Mother and how her Assumption into heaven is part of the salvation of us all. After all, we are on a journey to our salvation.
The actual belief, the dogma, associated with today’s feast is that our Lady, at the end of her life, was taken into God’s company, body and soul. In our case, when we die, there will be a gap between our entering God’s presence and the final resurrection of our bodies that we profess in the creed as we say “ we look for the resurrection of the dead and life of the world to come.
With our Lady, there was no gap. She’s already in that state of Glory, which Christ himself is, and which we hopefully will be at the end of time. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians. What I am saying is with God’s grace, we will follow.
We should understand Mary in light of the mystery of the Church. Vatican II’s Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, tells us that Mary is a symbol or icon of the Church, of all Christians. She is a model of the Church, and the Assumption of Mary points to a profound gift to all believers, the resurrection of the body!
The preface for today’s feast reads: “She was taken up to heaven as the beginning and the pattern of the Church in its perfection, and a sign of hope and comfort for your people on their pilgrim way.”
Mary’s Assumption is a symbol of the resurrection of all believers, of what the Church, as the mystical body of Christ and the Bride of Christ will experience at the end of history.
Christ is our model, of course. But Mary was a human person, like you and I except for one thing. She was free from sin. Through her son’s Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, she was then freed from death and brought into the heavenly kingdom by God.
The dogma of the Assumption means that the Virgin Mary now experiences in heaven that union of glorified body and soul, which her son enjoys. Well, enough about the dogma but we need to understand the basics to see our own participation in what is to come at the end of our lives.
Every year when we encounter this gospel reading on this Feast, I am struck that Mary is on a journey. The passage from Luke begins and ends with her traveling, embarking, really, on the greatest adventure in human history. Pope Benedict has described this moment, the Visitation, as the first Eucharistic procession, with Mary carrying Christ out into the world in her womb.
One of the documents of the Second Vatican Council even describes us as “the pilgrim people of God.” We are on a journey, guided by faith, sustained by hope, with the gospel as our guide. This gospel reading today reminds us of something we can easily forget: we are all pilgrims, on our journeys and as the gospel reminds us of another pilgrim on that journey- a trip that transcends time and place- is Mary.
Her earthly pilgrimage took her to places she never imagined; From Nazareth to Calvary. Hers was a life like no other in history. She lived the will of God.
Her Assumption was not the end of her journey, for her journey lives in each of us. She is praying for us and her journey, like ours, will find completeness when Jesus comes again at the end of time to bring her children home to the Father.
So we ask her on this feast to join us on our own mission, our own pilgrimage through life- to uplift us, to encourage us, to walk with us. This most Blessed of all women knows our struggles, our sufferings, our limitations. She lived with them herself. Yes, she was holy, but she was also human.
And like us, Mary was in a hurry. She set out in haste to Judah. In a few minutes, if I ever stop talking, and end this homily, we will be rushing out the door, getting into our cars, going to a late breakfast at our favorite restaurant, rushing to get in line for the ferry to get to the other side of the world, or to just go home.
But before we do that, we will stop and pray. We pray to our heavenly mother for her intercession with our Heavenly Father, as we ready ourselves to accept her sons sacrifice through his body and blood in the Eucharist. We pray for Mary’s companionship and support as we ourselves set out in haste to all the places we need to be.
We turn our hearts to this woman “full of Grace” imploring her to “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” So let us see the picture of this woman’ Full of Grace” that is so vividly portrayed in the reading this morning from Revelation. Let this picture enliven our hearts to reach out to The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Divine Mother as a child reaches out to their mother.
I leave you with these words from a homily given by Pope John Paul II on 15 August, 2001, The Feast of the Assumption:
“Today the children of the Church on earth are joyfully celebrating the virgin’s passing to the celestial city, the Heavenly Jerusalem. This is what the Armenian liturgy sings today. I make these words my own, thinking of my apostolic pilgrimage to Kazakhstan and Armenia in which, please God, I shall be setting out in just over a month.
To you Mary, I entrust the success of this new stage in my service to the Church and to the world. I ask you to help believers to be watchmen of
the hope that does not disappoint and never to stop proclaiming that Christ is victorious over evil and death. Faithful Woman, enlighten the humanity of our time so that it may understand that every human life is not extinguished in a handful of dust, but is called to a destiny of eternal
happiness. Mary, who are the joy of heaven and earth, may you watch over and pray for us, and for the whole world, now and forever, AMEN”.