Although the Assumption of Mary was not declared as a dogma by the Catholic Church until 1950 by Pope Pius XII, belief in the Assumption can be traced back to the early years of the Church. In announcing the dogma of the Assumption, the Pope reflected what the theologians, bishops, & the faithful of our Church all over the world already commonly believed about Mary.
But what we celebrate today goes way beyond a dogma of our faith. Mary has an important place in our lives and in the history of salvation. Mary is not only Jesus’ mother, but she is our mother and the mother of the Church. Even as we believe that in the Assumption that Mary shares with Jesus, body and soul, in his eternal glory in heaven, we recall that everything we believe about Mary always points us to her Son and increases our faith in Him. When we look at our relationship with Mary, the focus is never solely on Mary for her own sake. In Luke's Gospel, Mary proclaims the Magnificat in response to the greeting she receives from her cousin Elizabeth. Not only does the Magnificat express Mary’s faith, hope, and love for God, but it is one of the most radical messages in holy Scripture, with Mary challenging us to live out the values of the Good News.
Mary travels in haste through the hill country to reach her elderly cousin Elizabeth in her time of need. We, too, are called to serve our brothers and sisters with this same sense of love and attentiveness. As Mary travels in haste, she very personally gets involved in reaching out in love. Mary always gives of her whole self, not asking for anything in return. She recognizes the privilege she receives from God, but she does not seek to be served. Rather, Mary always seeks to serve others.
Mary announces: “God has scattered the proud of their conceit.” According to this statement, if we want to live in the light of Christ, we must die to our pride and our self-centeredness. In our pride, we can easily place ourselves and our desires above our love for God and our brothers and sisters; we can become rigid or arrogant; we can fail to put ourselves in the shoes of our neighbors to truly understand their perspective.
Mary also tells us: “God cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly.” This is so different from how our secular world operates, where the lowly often struggle to make it to the next day. Perhaps Mary is telling us that the power and prestige that our secular world idolizes so much will not matter in the long run when God’s kingdom comes to fulfillment. We remember that Christ did not exalt himself or lift himself upon a throne here on earth. He did not amass armies to seize power or to build an earthly kingdom. Instead, he became one of the lowly, he humbled himself to die for our sins on the cross, to love and serve others. As Christ’s followers, we’re called to serve others in our faith and out of our love for God, to submit ourselves to the will of God in our lives, to follow this call to social justice that Mary sets forth.
Although Mary experienced great joy in her life, exemplified in how she tells Elizabeth that “her soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,” Mary also experienced great sorrow in seeing her Son’s journey to the cross. Mary took in all the graces that God gave her and pondered them in her heart. Let us all ponder the radical significance of the Magnificat that Mary sings to us today. Let us allow the graces of the solemnity of the Assumption to touch our hearts today, affecting the way we live out our faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment