ASSUMPTION of the Blessed Mother

Another elaborate floral display at the Shillington Convent of the Precious Blood Sisters.   The shy altar sister tells me that she creates these pieces, this one for a jubilee party for two of the sisters but also for today's feast.

FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION  2016    Our Lady’s body whether immediately upon death or even without death (as some believe) experienced a resurrection into a state of glory and became present with Jesus, her Son, in his full human self.    Early on this mystery came to be a common belief among so many Christians, a belief long celebrated in the common prayer of the faithful.   There are those that would say this dogma goes beyond proof of scripture.   One might say it is better left undefined as dogma.   But the dogma honors the human body in a time of crisis for the human body in faith and practice.   We live in a time when many dishonor the body in so many ways, with abortion, with drugs and alcohol, with euthanasia, with eating disorders, with promiscuity and the like.   

God out of love creates and sustains our human bodies.  God, moreover,  honors our human bodies by the Incarnation, where one of the Trinity, the Son Jesus, takes on a human body identical to ours.  God crowns these honors given to the human body  by raising the body of Jesus and welcoming it into the Kingdom of heaven and then in the Assumption of Mary.  

 

We do not believe that there are glorified human bodies in this Kingdom other than Jesus and Mary.    All our bodies will be gathered together on the last day.    But in the case of Our Lady, we believe that God has simply decided not to wait.  What can time mean in heaven in any case?   Immediately or later is as good as any time in forever.  But Mary’s is the body that bore Jesus.  This is the woman that fed him at her breasts.   This is the woman that guided him to the love and practice of first century Jewish faith.   This is the woman whom scripture pictures as present to the suffering death of her Son.  The dogma of the Assumption simply says that this great lady does not wait, so to speak, for the last day like the rest of the dead to be bodily with her Son.