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The Solemnity of the Assumption
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Isaiah, 61:10-11
Galatians, 4:4-7
Luke, 1:46-55
+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Over the last five hundred years, scientific discoveries have often jolted
the Church. In the 16th century, Copernicus
upset the world by arguing that the earth revolved around the sun. His
arguments convinced some who would suffer for endorsing this view, most
famously Galileo.
An even more unfortunate fate met Giordano
Bruno, an Italian Dominican friar. He not only held Copernican cosmological
opinions, but he also professed less than wholesome Catholic theological
opinions. In about 1593, the Inquisition imprisoned and tortured him.
In February 1600, following a series of efforts to persuade him to recant,
he was burned, along with his writings.
Among Bruno's offensive ideas was that life existed beyond the earth.
In the near future several spacecraft will visit Mars searching to confirm
Bruno's bold speculation. The probes will look for signs of life, any
life, past or - much less likely - present life. Martian soil may contain
evidence of biological activity, of simple microbes, probably not any
complex life. Scientists have renewed optimism that eventually they will
make the unprecedented discovery that life does exist beyond Earth, either
on Mars or elsewhere. This may not make a great impression upon you, if
you are an avid reader of supermarket tabloids or vacation in Roswell,
but it would shock the Church. Fundamental doctrines like the Incarnation
would be challenged.
In the latest Atlantic Monthly, Paul Davies has an article about
the implications to religion if we discover incontrovertible evidence
of extraterrestrial life. Davies writes,
Christianity is species-specific. Jesus Christ was humanity's
savior and redeemer. He did not die for the dolphins or gorillas, and
certainly not for the proverbial little green men. But what of deeply
spiritual aliens? Are they not to be saved? Can we contemplate a universe
that contains perhaps a trillion worlds of saintly beings, but in which
the only beings eligible for salvation inhabit a planet where murder,
rape, and other evils remain rife? (1)
It's a fair question. If we find other life forms, which appear to be
made in God's image, that is they have free
will, if they have something like 'personality,'
something like a soul,
if they are capable of love, sacrifice, and forgiveness, would it not
be possible for these beings to have eternal life?
In the 18th century, that great patriot Thomas Paine argued
that "Christianity was simply incompatible with the existence of extraterrestrial
beings, writing, 'He who thinks he believes in both has thought but little
of either.'" (2) Paine, of course, did
not appreciate the dynamism of Christianity. The Church has frequently
faced challenges to her theology and adapted quite well. Throughout history
there have been incidents in which human experience helped us to understand
Church tradition and scripture in new ways. Copernicus,
Darwin, Einstein, have all forced the Church to understand her tradition
and scripture in new ways, just as S.
Athanasius, S.
Augustine, S.
Thomas Aquinas, Erasmus
led the Church to new understanding of scripture and Christian doctrine.
Many of the great theologians were highly controversial in their day as
they challenged us to understand God in new ways.
Already the real prospect of discovering signs of extraterrestrial life
has revitalized some aspects of theology. Since at least the time of Plato,
one of the classical proofs of the existence
of God was the 'teleological
proof,' that is by examining the design of the universe we can know something
of the creating intelligence. The design of the universe proves the existence
of God. I find the argument quite convincing, but Darwin's theory of evolution
damaged the academic credibility of this proof. Darwin said that life
is driven by random mutation and natural selection, not by an intelligent
design.
As theologians consider the possibility of extraterrestrial life, a revised
design argument is taking shape, an argument that embraces Darwin and
may also gain academic credibility. It understands that if life is widespread
in the universe, then life probably emerges easily from non-living chemical
mixtures. As Davies suggests, this sort of "exquisite bio-friendliness"
could be understood as evidence of God's ingenuity and foresight.
(3) We can conclude that God acts not only by direct intervention
but also by creating natural laws that promote the emergence of life.
In other words, the more we accept the formation of life as part of a
natural process of the cosmos, the more we appreciate the ingenuity of
God, the more we see all of creation as part of God's design.
The point is that new information and new experience does not threaten
the Church and her doctrines. Truth never threatens the Church. We do
not need to protect the Church from anything. New insight and new ways
of thinking challenge the Church to proclaim truth in new ways. As human
beings go through time, Christian doctrine develops to address our legitimate
concerns and questions, our new experiences and understanding of life.
Now, why am I speaking about all of this on this excellent feast of the
Assumption of our
Lady? It was not until All Saints Day, 1950, that Pope Pius XII issued
a papal bull
solemnly proclaiming that the bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin
Mary was Catholic dogma.
The bull proclaims: "the immaculate Mother of God, Mary Ever-Virgin, when
the course of her earthly life was run, was assumed in body and soul to
heavenly glory." In the early generations, the Church did not know of
the Assumption, even the late fourth century S.
Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, had not heard about it. The first recorded
evidence of the dogma is from the fourth century, and in the early accounts
there is a great range of opinion about it.
Despite its unknown origins, despite its lack of explicit scriptural
support, in the fifth and sixth centuries, the Assumption became quite
popular in the Church, and over the next fourteen centuries the Assumption
became the accepted account of the end of our Lady's earthly existence.
The Church gradually tested this aspect of Marian belief and eventually
determined through human experience that it was good, true, and beautiful.
The Assumption is a clear example of the development of Christian doctrine.
Now we must acknowledge that some Christians are highly suspicious that
Christian doctrine ought to develop. They would not endorse the Assumption.
A common religious disposition assumes that humanity received truth from
God on stone tablets, not all that unlike Moses receiving the ten commandments.
Consequently, many Christians try to form Christianity from the contents
of holy scripture alone and dispense with Church history and tradition.
In other words, some Christians rely upon their individual interpretation
of scripture, meaning their individual experience and reasoning. But orthodoxy
is dynamic, not static; orthodoxy is communal, not individual. The work
of the Holy Spirit does not end, but constantly leads the Church, the
entire community of Christians, more deeply into God's truth.
John Henry Cardinal
Newman, who in recent years was beatified by Pope John Paul II, taught
us that doctrine develops. But it does not develop randomly or without
rules and disciplines. Scientists use the scientific method to gain new
understanding. In a similar way, the Church and her theologians rely upon
theological investigation and theological reflection to gain new understanding.
One of the tests for authentic doctrinal development is that the idea
must be widely held throughout the Church. Also, developing doctrine has
to respect and to engage with the Church's tradition of faith and practice
as well as respond to pastoral need and to new understandings and information.
It is sometimes a tough balance between Church history and contemporary
imperatives. Gradually, over centuries, the Church's doctrine does develop
as long as it coherently holds together tradition, scripture, and human
experience and reason.
The dogma of the Assumption is authentic and true, and one of the chief
ways we may be certain of that is because it follows logically, coherently,
and necessarily from belief in the gospel. It does not contradict revelation
and scripture; rather, it grows from revelation and scripture. Belief
in the Assumption derives from belief that God became man in Jesus Christ.
The central truth of the Incarnation has generated this doctrinal development.
If we take our Lord's humanity seriously, then we have to venerate and
to honour our Lady and to hold fast to the doctrines about her. It is
not just that devotion to our Lady makes Christianity gentler, earthier,
happier, and more accessible. When Christianity is Mary-less, the Church
weakens. When we leave Mary out of Christianity, we distort the person
of Christ, and eventually have a Christ-less Christianity.
(4)
The woman who was the tabernacle of God for nine months, the woman whose
immaculate flesh God used to make himself incarnate, would not be separated
from Christ at her death. If we believe in the Ascension of our Lord,
that our risen Lord went up to heaven, do we not think that he would act
to raise his mother up to heaven? Is his mother, his own flesh, not in
heaven with him? The hope of every Christian is to be raised body and
soul to be with God, and if his mother is not with him, then who is? But
through centuries of prayerful reflection, the Church assures us of the
truth of the Assumption, and so we have more reason for joy and hope.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
1. Paul Davies, 'E.T. and God,' The
Atlantic Monthly, September 2003, p. 115.
2. Ibid.
3. Davies, p. 117, as is the
entire paragraph.
4. John Saward, The Beauty
of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty, Ignatius (1997).
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