ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Readings:  

Revelation 11.19a; 12.1-6a, 10ab

1Corinthians 15.20-26

Luke 1.39-56

If you walk into any Catholic church anywhere, usually you don't have to hunt to find some shrine or altar erected in honour of Mary, the mother of God.  Honouring Mary, however, had a late start in the life of the Church. Until the middle of the Sixth century there were no feasts in the Church to celebrate and honour Mary. The feast of Assumption and all other Marian celebrations were adopted by the Roman church and included in the western Catholic Church.

The belief in the Assumption had its origin in the popular faith of the people. Christians could not believe that Mary's body underwent decay after being separated from her soul at death: they could not imagine that her body would disintegrate after the unique role she played in sacred history. The faithful came to believe that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven, thus guaranteeing that she was present with God.

Although it was only proclaimed as dogma in 1950, the Assumption had been taught in the Church for centuries as a truth that emerged from the faith of the people. It also points to what we believe God will do for us. We believe that our whole person, body and soul, will be raised to a new existence in the peace of God. Thios is what the dogmatic definition tells us as it expresses the hope " that faith in the bp0dily assumption of Mary into heaven may make our faith in our resurrection both stronger and ,more active."

Mary's importance is not limited to giving us hope about the afterlife; she gives every Christian hope in the growing struggle of everyday life. In today's Gospel Luke portrays her as the one who glorifies God because "the Almighty has done great thing for me." She is a woman of the people whose song delights in God's choice of her, whose spirit soars because God has n ot overlooked this lowly handmaid. But she is also a dangerous woman because she is the one who voices the subversive hope of the poor and the little ones:

For many poor people, the song of Mary expresses Thier own hope in the liberating power of God. For them Mary is not alive in statues and pictures but the real and powerful change that can be brought about in the world when God's preferences and God's choices are taken seriously. She is the mother of all who ate oppressed and overlooked and scorned. She was the little one, the lowly servant, made great by the choice of God. that same choice is extended to all the lowly. Mary voices God's opposition to tyranny, his determination to pull down the powers that brutalise their subjects. In that , Mary is not passive silent woman. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it is the poor who look to her most for help. it is they we see on our television carry her statues with great dignity as they process in circles outside palaces and prisons and army headquarters. May our blessed mother Mama Mary intercede for us and the World.