| Readings: | Rev 11:19A; 12:1-6A, 10AB |
| Date: | August 15, 2024, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary |
Joseph, Mary, and Jesus are having breakfast. Mary puts down her coffee and says: "You know, at the end of my life, I'm going straight to Heaven, body and soul!" Joseph looks up from his newspaper and replies: "That's quite an assumption, Mary."
As I was reading the history of today's Feast becoming Catholic dogma, it struck me that the Assumption is very much connected to the Bread of Life discourse from John's Gospel that we are in the middle of hearing for five weeks in this Year B of the liturgical calendar.
Specifically the Assumption of Mary is the realization of what we heard Jesus promise this past Sunday for those who believe in him. Jesus tells the crowd that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. As believers in Christ, we look forward to eternal life, not just as souls but as full human beings, body and soul. And Mary being assumed into Heaven body and soul demonstrates that this is what we hope for ourselves.
I want to make sure we all understand what Jesus' promise means. The Greek word that translates whatever Aramaic Jesus spoke for believer has a much broader meaning than our word believer does. To be a believer does not mean that we acknowledge in our minds that Jesus as the Son of God, or the Bread come down from heaven. It means to live our life in such a way that our life demonstrates that we believe that we believe that. It means that this belief colors our whole life. If we want to know what it means to live our life in a way that demonstrates that we believe in Jesus, we only have to look to Mary. Today's Gospel gives us Mary's beautiful prayer, The Magnificat. In it she expresses what it means to live our lives in a way that demonstrates or manifests our belief in God. From Mary's acceptance of the Angel Gabriel's announcement that she is to bear the Son of God, through caring as parent for Jesus in those early years in Galilee to her standing by the cross, to living and praying with the disciples after Jesus' ascension, Mary devoted her entire life to discerning God's mercy and generousity in our lives, and living accordingly. We are called by Jesus to do the same.
Mary's assumption into heaven is proof of our hope that we too will have the fullness of enternal life after we die. In that second reading, Paul refers to Jesus as the first fruits of the salvation that come from his Paschal mystery of suffering, dying and rising but for me it is more understandable for us to look at Mary's assumption as the first fruits of what Jesus' saving action brings to us who are not divine but simply human like Mary. In Mary's assumption we see humanly understandable proof that God has remembered his promise of mercy to us who are children of Abraham. Let us celebrate this feast today by partaking of the bread of life, who is Jesus in the Eucharist. In so doing we are joined more fully to that body of Christ who brings salvation to the world. Then when we are sent out from Mass, we are to live our lives as members of that body with the trust and gratitude that Mary expresses in the Magnificat, so that others may be drawn to Jesus as well, and in this way God's kingdom may come more fully here on earth.
That's my assumption.