All Saints' Church, East Finchley
News and Links
Homily for The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
"All generations will call me blessed."
There is a link between the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and All Saints' which didn't strike me until this year. It was on our Feast Day, the Solemnity of All Saints' in 1950 that the then Holy Father, Pius XII of blessed memory, solemnly defined the doctrine of the Assumption as a truth revealed by God, and founded upon Scripture and Tradition. Although the solemn definition is only sixty years old, the belief in Mary's corporal assumption is far older and goes back to legends that we have inherited from the earliest days of the Church. Some of these stories became very embroidered, and are of no use in helping to us judge the historical accuracy of the event, or its contemporary relevance. Indeed, they have served rather to give the whole mystery of Mary's Assumption the aura of a fairy tale at best, or of a tall story at worst. So - let us ask what is the Assumption, and what use is it? What is the meaning of the Assumption for us?
Well, first of all, put away any notion that Mary did not die. The doctrine says that Mary lived a normal human life, biologically speaking, and then died a normal human death. Her exemption from sin did not prevent her from paying this common debt of humanity. Her body, however, was not allowed to suffer corruption, but was carried up with her soul to heaven. Now, you may scoff at this idea, but Mary's empty tomb was shown to pilgrims in Jerusalem as late as the seventh century. But let's not get bogged down in the mechanics of the Assumption or in questioning the veracity of confused tales: the fact is that Our Lady has been a busy presence with us from the beginning. Not only do we benefit from her moral and spiritual example, we also rejoice in her abiding presence in our midst. She was there from the beginning, of course - before the beginning, in fact. To all those who live in Jesus Christ she is the rock from which we are hewn, and represents the Israel of God. She was also the tabernacle of Christ's presence from his conception until his birth and the humanity that he assumed and took to himself was Mary's humanity, our common humanity in its most pure form. She gave birth to the Messiah and protected him from harm until the time when his ministry began and she could no longer do so. After the Lord's Ascension, we see her at the heart of the Church in Jerusalem, living the life of prayer. Through the ages, she has been a constant source of inspiration and it was in defining her role in our salvation that the Council of Ephesus in 433AD finally nailed all the heresies that had at their heart that God and man could not really and truly be at one. "Theotokos - Mother of God" they acclaimed her, not to set her on a pedestal but to affirm that our humanity is capable of divinization, deification, theosis. Whatever the Church affirms of Mary, you see, she affirms as a possibility for all of us. It is said that there were popular riots and demonstrations of rejoicing when the Council's decision was made known: those people got so excited not just because honour had been done to Our Lady, but because her humanity represents our common humanity and that in saying that she was the mother of God, the Council affirmed that God was truly at home in us, and that the way to the Kingdom of Heaven was open for all.
Mary is a human being, and a saint, the greatest of the saints, or so the Church believes. She is certainly the busiest of the saints, as is witnessed by the origins, life and work of the great shrines of Walsingham, Lourdes, Fatima and elsewhere. She shows us how being human means that we are made for a purpose, and that that purpose is not only to be sanctified and sanctifying in this world, but also to be of enduring and holy significance in the next. Mary is the great sign of hope to us, that we can overcome sin, frailty and death to achieve an everlasting humanity in the glory of heaven. She shows, through her ministry to us, that we not only have an advocate in heaven, but that we also have a home there. When the Catholic says Ad Jesum, per Mariam - to Jesus, through Mary, he is not putting an obstacle between himself and Christ, he, or she, is simply travelling the same way as Jesus did and looking with love up to his greatest friend in heaven among all the children of men. In Jesus we see God, and we see God's will for us, his love for us, his care for us and his promises to us. In Mary, we see humanity's response to God, and the reward for our obedience. The Assumption is the seal upon the gift of hope that our faith is for all of us.