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 Spirit. Amen.

Our gospel today, the Magnificat, stands at the heart of Christian faith. Few words have so impressed themselves upon the Christian imagination and shaped our spiritual lives. Our Lady declares the gospel of her son before her son has arrived. She expresses the hope and faith given to us by the child in her womb. Holy Mary, the whole world cannot contain him, yet hidden he lies in thy womb.

S. Mary experienced God in ways none of us ever could. As we recalled at the beginning of mass today, God sent his Archangel Gabriel to a city of Galilee to a virgin betrothed to Joseph. Gabriel declared God's favor to Mary and called her to conceive and to bear God's Son and to be God's mother. Mary obeyed. Through the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit who hovered over the waters at the Creation, Mary would conceive and bring forth a child, a new creation. She chose to accept her call, and God became present in our world.

None of us encounters God in exactly that way, but it's a grave mistake to consider Mary's experience of God as wholly other than our own. Each of us experiences God, and through prayer and attentiveness, we recognize how ordinary that experience is. We come to mass to meet God, to come into his presence, to renew our union with him. Like Mary saying ‘yes' to God, our celebration of the mass is our corporate ‘yes' to God's command: "Do this in remembrance of me." When we obey God and accept his call, his plan for our lives, he is present with us.

No matter where the mass is celebrated – on a battlefield, around a kitchen table, in a city park – God comes to us. We are so fortunate here because our worship and our liturgy express the majesty and mystery and solemnity and beauty of God's coming to us. Everyone who makes this parish family their home does so because they encounter God here. It is a gift for which we are eternally grateful.

Worship is hardly the only way we know God. Perhaps the most common way, and certainly the first way, we experience God is through other people. S. Augustine says, "One loving soul sets another on fire." Fire is the Holy Spirit. Our relationships with other people fill us with the Holy Spirit. Love is an experience of God's Spirit. People learn about God and become faithful Christians not primarily through books or reflection or dramatic religious experiences, but through other people. Spiritual development, faith requires other people.

Probably the first experience we have of God is our mother. For the infant, mothers provide everything: nourishment, warmth, comfort. The infant doesn't even distinguish itself from its mother. Only gradually does the infant become to know that he is not part of his mother. The baby Jesus was a human being. God chose to limit himself and become a human being – a helpless, clueless, vulnerable infant. As we read S. Mark's gospel and S. Luke's gospel, we see Jesus, even in his adult years, growing in understanding of who he was and what his Father was calling him to do.

There's no reason to expect that the baby Jesus understood himself to be the Son of God. It's an absurd notion. The human Jesus had to grow and to nurture his relationship with God the Father. That's why prayer was so important to him. That's also why his mother was so important to him. Mary's ‘yes' to God did not happen only at the Annunciation, but continued through her life. Mary helped form his total humanity. She was not just a flesh donor. She nourished his whole being – heart, soul, mind, body. Mary helped her child mature and grow in relation to God. In a way, her loving care introduced her son to God. Just as we do, Jesus experienced God through his mother, through her care and love for him. He also saw God working in her character. Her faith, her trust, her obedience, her hope, played a vital role in making Jesus who he is. That's why we honor Mary. (Joseph also deserves some credit, but today isn't his day.)

Today, we hold up Mary and pray that our faith may be as strong as hers. Last week, we heard about Abraham's faith, his trust that God would make his descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven even though his wife Sarah had no children and was beyond her childbearing years. But Abraham trusted God, and God was loyal to his promise. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Heb 11:1) Faith is trust in God. Mary has the same remarkable faith as Abraham. A teenager follows God's call to her, even though she knows not how God can fulfill his promise, even though fulfillment of God's promise should cause her betrothed to abandon her. Through Abraham's faith, through Mary's faith, God is renewing his creation and setting things right.

In today's gospel, Mary is a few months pregnant. God has radically changed her life. He has upset her stability. And Mary's response is praise of God. Her praise, the Magnificat, continues the themes of Old Testament history and prophecy, especially the hope that God will reverse our current earthly fortunes. At the heart of Mary's praise is that God will empower the humble and humble the powerful: "He hath put down the mighty from their thrones, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away." (Lk 1:52-53)

Mary's song is not light, flowery praise of God about the joys of motherhood. There's nothing sentimental about it at all. Indeed, Luke loathes such an attitude about Mary and motherhood. In his gospel, a woman calls out to Jesus, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked." Jesus doesn't indulge that. He corrects her sentimentality: "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it." (Lk 11:27-28) Mary is blessed, Mary is happy, because God has called her to a remarkable service, because she heard the word of God, and she said ‘yes." Likewise each of us is happy, when we hear God's call, his purpose for our lives, and we try to do it.

Mary's song is about weighty, moral matters. She sings about economic and political justice. That's at the heart of Christ's mission. Jesus requires Christians to assume responsibility of care for the poor and the oppressed. We are not to turn our backs on those in need. An essential part of the Church's ministry is her care for people. As a parish family, these are questions we have to ask ourselves. Are we lifting up the hungry and meek? If we were to shut our doors tomorrow, other than our parishioners, who would notice? If other people don't notice, then we are not living up to our calling, and we have to change our ways. It's one of the things that distinguishes the Church from being a club. We don't exist to help only our own.

Part of the genius of Mary's song, however, is that it offers hope to more than the economically and politically oppressed. We join Mary in praising God because he frees us from all of the evil forces that oppress us and keep us down. God reverses the messes we make for ourselves, both individually and corporately. God cares about our worldly circumstances, and he also cares about more profound oppressors. God reverses the power of sin and death. God has come to the rescue and given us new life, true freedom, the promise of mercy and justice, the hope of fulfillment.

Mary is celebrating God's graciousness. She sings with rhythm and passion and warmth. It has a beat, and she has something to dance about. Despite her lowly status in the eyes of the world, despite being unnoticeable and seemingly insignificant, God calls her and exalts her to help him accomplish his purpose. Through Mary's cooperation, through her motherhood, God defeats sin and death.

The Magnificat is about triumph. That's why we hear it today on the Feast of the Assumption, the day on which we praise God that the Mother of God was assumed in body and soul to heavenly glory. The Assumption celebrates the victory of God, of life over death, and gives us hope that we will join Mary in heaven. Hail Mary, now and always.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.