Assumption of BVM

MASS

The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Friends visiting the Carfin Lourdes Grotto on Assumption Day.

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From: Raymond  …>
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Subject: Assumption

The Bodily Assumption of Mary into Heaven

By Fr. Raymond

The Bodily Assumption of Mary into Heaven is one of the three great personal privileges of Mary: The Immaculate Conception; the Divine Motherhood and the Assumption.  The Immaculate Conception prepared Mary for her Divine Motherhood and her Assumption into Heaven was a consequence of it. This connection between the Devine Motherhood and the Assumption can perhaps be best understood if we think of the debt any man owes to his Mother. It is a debt that can never be repaid. Our Mothers gave us our very life and existence. They formed us in their wombs; the nursed us at their breasts. ‘No man can pay the price of his life’ as the psalmist reminds us. The best we can do to repay our Mothers for the gift of life is for us to love and honour and respect them, and of course to care for them in their old age.

But things are not so between Mary and the Divine Son she bore. He was Almighty God and was well able to make a fitting recompense to his Mother for giving him his body of flesh. He repaid this debt of gratitude by taking her own body of flesh and blood and preserving it from the corruption of the grave and assuming her, in her bodily entirety, into heaven just as he himself had been at his Ascension. Nor is this just something personal to Mary. We must wait, of course, till the last day for our bodily assumption into heaven, but Mary’s bodily assumption, like the ascension of Christ himself,  gives us already a kind of pledge and guarantee of the ultimate destiny of our own body of flesh and blood. Christ, the New Adam, has entered the New Paradise, of which the Old Paradise was just a foreshadowing, and Mary, the New Eve, has been given to him as his first companion in the fullness of her humanity.

     When the doctrine of the Assumption was first defined, our separated brethren asked, “Where is this in Scripture? We can’t believe what is not in Scripture”. But we can answer that this wonderful event is well prepared for in Holy Scripture. The mind of faith is prepared for it by such events as the lifting up of Elijah from this earth in the fiery chariot. We are prepared for it by the disappearance from this earth of the bodies of Enoch and Moses for example.  But by far the most important foreshadowing of Mary’s Assumption takes place in the very first chapters of Genesis where it is said of the first Adam: “It is not good for Man to be alone”. There were plenty of other living creatures around, but none “like unto himself” to share his life with him on a fully human level. So too surely it must be with the New Adam in the new Paradise. There are plenty of angels and spirits of the just there too but, for the fullness and perfection of all beauty and truth, he needs one by his side who can share his life in the fullness of his glorified humanity, body as well as spirit. Yes even for the New Adam in the New Paradise “It is not good for Man to be alone”.

Pope Benedict XVI writes that "precisely because Mary is with God and in God, she is very close to each one of us. While she lived on this earth she could only be close to a few people. Being in God, who is actually 'within' all of us, Mary shares in this closeness of God." Our Lady "knows our hearts, can hear our prayers, can help us with her motherly kindness. She always listens to us and, being Mother of the Son, participates in the power of the Son and in his goodness. We can always entrust the whole of our lives to this Mother." The Blessed Mother's birth into heaven generates in us "all ever new capacity to await God's future" (John Paul II).

The Assumption

O most holy Mother of God, after heaven and earth were honoured by your presence, how is it possible to accept that your departure has left men deprived of your protection? Let it never occur to us to think in this way. For just as you, when living in this world, never felt estranged from a heavenly life, even so, after your departure, you are not spiritually separated from the [earthly] existence of men. If, on the one hand, you were consecrated as the heavenly tabernacle of God, because you held the Son of the Most High within you, your womb being capable of carrying his weight; on the other hand, you have been called the spiritual earth, because you received his body within you. Thus it is right to think that, since you were intimately united with God during all of your earthly sojourn, you never abandoned those who continue to live in this world, when you left this world's life.

We however, accustomed to venerate you faithfully, uselessly say: Why were we not considered worthy to have you stay with us in your bodily presence? Therefore we call thrice blessed those who delighted ill the contemplation of your earthly existence, those who helped you, 0 Mother of life, as your companions in life. In any case, still desiring that you might dwell bodily in our midst, the eyes of our souls are compelled to look toward you daily.

Indeed, as you were a fellow citizen of our ancestors, even so you dwell with us spiritually, and your ample protection in our regard is like a sign that you are with us. We all hear your voice, and all our voices reach your ears. Through the protection you offer us, we are known by you. We, in our turn, recognize your ever-wonderful assistance. Nothing, not even death, can come between you and your servants.

You did not abandon those who greeted you, nor have you abandoned those whom you gathered together, because your spirit lives forever and your flesh did not have to bear the corruption of the grave. You see everyone, and your vigilance, 0 Mother of God, extends to all. Yes, our eyes are prevented from seeing you, 0 Most Holy One, but still you delight to remain in our midst, manifesting yourself in various ways to those who are worthy. Truly, the flesh cannot impede the power and ability of your spirit, because spirit blows where it wills, being a spirit pure and immaterial, incorruptible and immaculate, a compan­ion spirit of the Holy Spirit, the favourite spirit of the Godhead of the Only-begotten.

Saint Germanus of Constantinople (+ 732) was the Patriarch of Constantinople.

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