Where Mary Has Gone, We Will Follow

Homily for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the BVM

The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Catholic believe that Mary is the Mother of God who remained a perpetual virgin, was conceived without the stain of mortal sin, and was assumed body and soul into heaven after her death. At the Council of Chalcedon in 472, a request was made to have the bones of Mary translated to Constantinople for permanent veneration there. When her tomb was opened for that purpose, no bones or any vestiges remained. This fact fortified the belief held for centuries that Mary’s body, through which Jesus came into this world, was taken up into heaven as was the Body of her Son.

The First Reading for this celebration today is always the same for this feast and always confusing. When we hear this reading, we often assume that the woman is Mary and that the child she delivers is Jesus. However, the “woman” of the vision by John, the writer of the Book of Revelations, is not Mary. The “woman” is the image of the nation Israel who would mother the Messiah. The child is not Jesus, but Moses who had been saved in the water of the Nile, saved from the Dragon, Leviathan. The woman adorned with the sun, the moon, and the stars are images taken from the Book of Genesis and symbolizes God’s people in the Old and the New Testament. The Israel of old gave birth to the Messiah (Rev 12:5) and then became the new Israel, the church, which suffers persecution by the dragon, which is a symbol of Rome, the persecutor of the early Church.

In the reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul reminds us that just as death entered the world through the sin of Adam and Eve, Jesus “the new Adam,” and Mary “the new Eve,” who cooperated with God’s will, bring to fruition the plan of salvation which is first announced in the book of Genesis. As a result, not only did Jesus rise from the dead, all who place their faith in Jesus will also be raised. Mary is the first to experience what will come to all of us on the last day when our bodies will be raised and we will also enter Heaven, body and soul.

The importance to our faith which is celebrated with this liturgy is that faith, within questioning and fears and doubts, is the center of our response to God’s relating with us. Mary was asked to hear, trust, travel, and live fully what she heard, or believed she heard. The reality of the angel’s message was accepted by her faith in God’s promise to send a Savior. Within her womb and that of Elizabeth’s, that faith was validated. Reality came forth in Bethlehem and throughout Israel in the life of Jesus and to His Death. Quite a final reality! And Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. Did she doubt and tremble with fear, of course, she was a human. Did she trust while shaking in her sandals? She did! This feast celebrates her fidelity to all that she believed and encourages us to believe as well. We do not assume that we will be raised ourselves, we believe it!