Dr. Angela
Dr. Angela
Today we will reflect on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I am speaking to you from Perth, Western Australia, in the country of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation.
Forty years ago, we took into our family three small girls whose mother was a close friend and neighbour and who had died from cancer. On the first anniversary of her death, we attended Mass with theirgrandmother. To get there was a major effort due to the distress of the girls and the chaos of feeding, dressing, toileting and calming their anxiety as well as caring for our young son. We got to the church just as Mass started and hustled into a pew behind their grandmother. Her distress was immense and contagious so we tried to calm the children and offer support to Nanna. I don’t remember the first reading but I do remember the psalm: Psalm 126, “The Lord has done great things for us, we are filled with joy!” I reachedout and took my husband’s hand and squeezed it and he immediately knew what I meant. How do we findjoy in all this pain and chaos? We have used that particular psalm many times to express our joy in times of grief as well as blessing.
Maybe this is how Mary felt; young, unmarried and pregnant with the possibility that she could be stoned to death according to the Law of Moses. To find support she went to stay with her cousin Elizabeth and the gospel today tells us the result.
Elizabeth was completely in tune with God’s will and Mary’s need. She proclaims her blessed and the child leapt in her womb; Elizabeth and her unborn son both recognise the mother of the Lord. This also echoes previous women of the Hebrew bible who are declared to be blessed, Jael and Judith. Mary and Elizabeth follow in the tradition of the great Hebrew women, faithful women who are instrumental in the salvation of Israel.
Mary then proclaimed what we call the Magnificat. In all the chaos and danger, Mary finds in her heart a song of God’s greatness, of God’s care for the poor and the downcast. Praise of a God who lifts up the lowly and brings down the high and mighty. Her song echoes the Song of Hannah from the 1 Samuel 2:1-10. Hannah, who was barren like Elizabeth, had been blessed by God and bore a son, Samuel, who she then gave to the Lord. She too prayed a great prayer of praise and it is possible that Mary knew Hannah’s prayer.Both praise the Lord for lifting up the poor and bringing down the mighty. Hannah, Elizabeth and Mary, who are blessed by God, are all mothers of prophets who will change the world. Prophets are those who point the way to God and the birth of Jesus brings the full revelation of God through his life, death, ascension and resurrection.
The Feast of the Assumption is a strange one and is difficult to understand in a 21st century mindset but it has been honoured since the sixth century. Mary’s body held God and therefore she holds a very special place in our hearts and faith. Eventually, when death came, shewas honoured and, in some way, taken into the fullness of life with God without suffering corruption in anearthly way. There is no clear indication in Scripture for this belief. There is a legend that says the same about the Burning Bush that still lives at the foot of Mt Sinai in St Catherine’s monastery in what is now Egypt. Since it held the presence of God it has never corrupted. The Feast of the Assumption was declared by Pope Pius XII in 1950 as a result of the abhorrence of the wars of the 20th century to confirm that both our bodies and souls will rise with Christ. This is the second of only two infallible statements made by popes and both of them are about Mary. Mary is an example because she participates in the fullness of life in God and shows us that through her Son’s resurrection, we too will share eternal life. She is part of the new creation, won through the power of Christ’s death and resurrection.
The first reading for today’s celebration has apocalyptic vigour. The young woman about to give birth is threatened by the dragon, the symbol of evil. Sometimes interpretations see the woman as Mary, but that is not necessarily the case. She symbolises all women who give birth, with the pain and the danger, brought about through the interactions between the first woman and the crafty serpent in Genesis
3. Womankind is a beacon of light, wearing the sun, standing on the moon and with 12 stars around her head. Twelve is the symbol of perfect order in God’s governance. Glorious because womankind enters intothe life of God the Creator by giving birth to humans who are made in the image and likeness of God.
The archetypical struggle for humankind between good and evil have reached apocalyptic levels in this vision and it is only God who can release humankind from the threat and bring us to safety. The strugglesthat we face globally are real with the truth being hard to discern, drugs and other substances destroying families, corruptive business and political practices directly causing the poverty of others, millions of refugees wandering the world seeking safety. The baby is snatched away from the serpent, from evil, by God and it was a son who would rule the world with an iron sceptre, a very earthly attribute. The mother escaped into the desert to a place of safety that God had prepared. This echoes the escape of the Israelites into the desert and also the escape of Hagar, the mother of Abram’s first son Ishmael, when in anger Sarai wanted her banished. As Hagar and Ishmael wandered in the wilderness, God heard their cry and they were rescued. Mary is the first to be taken into the life of the Trinity through the resurrection of her Son. Through the incarnation, God enters the struggle between good and evil and redemption is assured for all human kind.
The psalm offers another vision of a woman, escorted amid gladness and joy into the palace of the king. Wedding symbolism is used in this psalm and the king is glorious. The Letter to the Hebrews refers to this psalm which then links it to a Messianic image. The Messiah will come, and through the selflessness of a woman, God’s power and glory will be seen. By naming the woman “O daughter”, she is a daughter of Jerusalem, one from whom the Messiah will come, an honoured title.
The second reading from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is much easier to absorb. “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep”. Death is no longer an annihilation becauseChrist’s victory means that death has been destroyed and eternal life with God is now a reality. Mary is the first to be given this gift because of her selfless surrender to God’s will.
These four readings give us profoundly different images of the story of salvation and how it comes about. In a nutshell, God’s presence in the world and revelation through the person of Jesus of Nazareth, culminates in the salvation of all creation through Christ’s death and resurrection. We are called to live as resurrected people, no longer afraid of the dragons that are both real and imagined, but as people of hope knowing that we follow Mary to a glorious union with God.
As we celebrate this Feast of the Assumption, everything points to our salvation and so we offer theEucharist, a thanksgiving to the Father, with the Son and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us be resurrected people!
