The Solemnity of the Assumption
Revelation 11:19; 12:1-6,10 + 1 Corinthians 15:20-26 + Luke 1:39-56
August 15, 2012
In Washington, D.C. there are monuments to many of our presidents who served our country at crucial times in its history: one of the newest honors Franklin Roosevelt, who served our country during the course of a great economic depression and a world war. Other monuments honor Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.
All this, of course, is very natural. When great and famous people die, they are usually given an elaborate funeral and buried in a great tomb. Often buildings and streets are named after them. Many people hope that their memory will live after them, whether through their personal legacy or through some sort of monument. Most of us at least hope to live on in the memories, thoughts, and prayers of those who are close to us.
But the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us about the greatest and deepest hope that is shared by every human being who really looks at the meaning of life and death: the hope that we will live not just in the memory of others, but that we will live on forever in heaven, worshipping God forever. The feast of the Assumption is not simply about Mary, but about the human race.
Whenever you look at human history, you see how often and in how many ways God graced the human race with great gifts of talent and insight. And yet so often people have taken these gifts and twisted them in order to serve death. The almost miraculous insights of a genius such as Einstein was used to develop weapons capable of destroying human life on the planet. Yet this simply reflects one of the most basic facts of human existence: original sin. In other words, when humanity is left to its own powers, it constantly gravitates towards DEATH. This is the story of the human race, from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to the Israelites in the desert, to Christ coming to live among us and being killed for his actions, to our own day. God created human beings as completely good, but we often take what is good and use it for bad purposes.
The fact that Mary was taken up – assumed – into heaven at the end of her life was a unique gift given to one person, and yet it has something to teach all of us. Not superstition, but show us how much God privileged Mary, how much Mary loved her Son, and how much we can love her Son through her example and her prayers for us.
Our Catholic belief in Mary’s Assumption has been held by Christians since the first century, since the apostles who witnessed for themselves Mary’s being taken up into Heaven. But why should we continue to believe this today? What hope IS there in believing that Mary, at the end of her life here on earth, was assumed, soul AND body into Heaven?
We all believe that when a person dies, if they are a state of perfect grace, their soul goes to Heaven, or in another word, that their soul is “assumed” into Heaven. We may very well know people in our own families who, we’re sure, had their souls taken by God into Heaven. This may very well happen with many people. Well, the only difference between these people and the end of Mary’s life is that BOTH Mary’s soul AND her BODY were assumed into Heaven.
Why was Mary’s body taken into Heaven along with her soul? Because Mary is the type of person that all of us were originally supposed to be, but didn’t become because of Original Sin. If Adam and Even, and all of us in turn, had never sinned, then every one of us would rise body and soul into Heaven at the end of our lives on this earth. Death as we know it only exists because of human sin.
Yet Mary was given a special gift by God, since God knew that she would accept His calling to be the Mother of Jesus Christ. The privilege of Mary’s first moment of existence, the privilege of her Immaculate Conception: her being conceived by her mother, St. Anne, without Original Sin, meant that her whole life was a special grace from God. It was still filled with struggles and pain, but at the end of her life on this earth, Mary became a sign of hope for us. Because Mary was never touched by the effects of original sin, she didn’t suffer the corruption of her body.
Mary is the perfect example of what it means to take the gifts given by God and use them completely for good. Because Mary accepted the great gift of being the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God, and because she always stood faithful to Christ, even as he hung on the Cross, she was protected by God from the most powerful effect of original sin: that body and soul should be separated at the time of death.
So when the end of Mary’s life came, Mary became the sign that shows all of us our own destiny as disciples of Christ. When we die, our souls and bodies will be separated for quite some time: until the end of time, in fact. Nonetheless, if you and I follow Christ even when it means embracing the Cross — if we are always willing to use the gifts God has given us for good and not evil — then when Christ comes a second time (at the end of time), your body and my body will be raised by Christ, and with our Blessed Mother in Heaven we will all thank God for the gift of life. We shouldn’t forget that we celebrate this in our Creed when we pray, “We believe in the resurrection of the body.”
Mary shows us how to follow her Son to heaven. Mary is also our hope. Where Mary has gone, we too hope to follow. Mary was given great gifts by God, but how can we consider ourselves to be lacking in any graces we need when God the Father gives us a share in his Son’s life through the Eucharist?
