The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Luke 1:39-56
First Reading
Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a,10ab
The sign of God’s salvation will be a woman clothed with the sun.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 45:10-12,16
The queen takes her place next to God.
Second Reading
1 Corinthians 15:20-27
Christ has redeemed Adam’s sin.
Gospel Reading
Luke 1:39-56
Mary greets Elizabeth and sings God’s praise.
Background on the Gospel Reading
Today’s feast celebrates Mary’s Assumption into heaven. It is one of three feasts of Mary that are Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics in the United States. January 1 is the feast of Mary, the Mother of God, and December 8 is the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. The assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven has long been held as an important Catholic belief. The belief was not defined as dogma, however, until 1950 by Pope Pius XII. The dogma teaches that Mary, who was without sin, was taken, body and soul, into the glory of heaven.
The Gospel for this holy day recalls Mary’s actions after the announcement of Jesus’ birth by the Angel Gabriel. Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth who is also with child. Elizabeth greets Mary with full recognition of the roles they and their unborn children will play in God’s plan for salvation. Mary responds to Elizabeth’s greeting with her song of praise, the Magnificat. Both women recall and echo God’s history of showing favor upon the people of Israel. Mary’s Magnificat, in particular, echoes the song of praise offered by Hannah, the mother of Samuel.
The Gospel for this day reminds us that Mary’s Assumption into heaven is best understood with regard for the full spectrum of Catholic beliefs about the person of Christ and the person of Mary. Only Mary, who was born without stain of original sin—the Immaculate Conception—could give birth to Christ, who is fully God and fully human. This is called the Immaculate Conception. Because of Mary’s role in God’s plan of salvation, she does not suffer from the effects of sin, which are death and decay. Mary is the first to receive the fullness of the redemption that her son has won for all of humanity. The Church, therefore, recognizes Mary as the sign of the salvation promised to all.
Today’s Gospel highlights Mary’s faith. Mary’s faith enabled her to recognize the work of God in her people’s history and in her own life. Her openness to God allowed God to work through her so that salvation might come to all. Mary is a model and symbol of the Church. May we be like Mary, open and cooperative in God’s plan of salvation.
Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was already being celebrated on 15 August in the 5th century. It bore the sense of Our Lady’s “Birth into heaven”, or in the Byzantine tradition, her “Dormition”. The feast began to celebrated in Rome in the middle of the 7th century. It was not until 1 November 1950, that Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Dogma of Mary’s assumption body and soul into heaven. In the Apostles’ Creed, we profess our faith in the “Resurrection of the body” and in “life everlasting”. This is the ultimate goal and meaning of our life’s journey. This promise of faith is already accomplished in Mary, who is the “sign of sure hope and comfort” (Preface). It is a privilege granted to Mary, and closely connected to her being the Mother of Jesus. Since death and the corruption of the human body are consequences of sin, it was not right that the Virgin Mary – who is free from sin – should be affected by this natural law. Hence the mystery of her “Dormition” or “Assumption into heaven”. The fact that Mary has already been assumed into heaven is a reason to celebrate, to rejoice, to hope in the “already and the not yet”. One of God’s creatures – Mary – is already in heaven. With her, and like her, we too, who are God’s creatures, will one day be there too. Mary’s destiny, united to the transfigured and glorious body of Jesus, is, therefore, the destiny of all those who are united to the Lord Jesus in faith and love. It is interesting to note that the liturgy – through the biblical texts taken from the Book of Revelation and the Gospel according to Luke (the Canticle of the Magnificat) – helps us, not so much to reflect, as to pray. In fact, the Gospel suggests that Mary’s mystery be read in the light of her prayer, the Magnificat, that is, through the lens of gratuitous love that extends from generation to generation, and the predilection of the least and the poor. Its choicest fruit, you could say its masterpiece, is Mary, a mirror in which the entire people of God can see its own features reflected. The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, is an eloquent sign of how not only the “soul” but also the “body” is included in the biblical observation that “God found it very good” (Gn 1:31), so much so that in the Virgin Mary, “our flesh” would be assumed into heaven. This does not exempt us from committing ourselves to life here on earth, but rather that with our gaze fixed on the goal, on Heaven, our Homeland, we are driven to commit ourselves during our present life to reflect the Magnificat: to rejoice in God’s mercy, to be attentive to all our brothers and sisters we meet along the way, beginning with the weakest and most vulnerable.
Praising God
Today, the Virgin Mary, with her Magnificat, teaches us how to praise and glorify God. It is an invitation through which the Virgin Mary, today contemplated in glory, invites us to go beyond our usual mode of magnifying problems and difficulties. Mary is able, and today she teaches this to us, to look on life through another lens: our hearts are greater than our sins. And even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts! (cf. 1 Jn 3:20) This is not, therefore, illusory, as if to say there are no problems in life. It is about appreciating what is beautiful and good in life and knowing how to thank God for it! This way, even problems are seen in their proper light.
God surprises
A second aspect that deserves to be highlighted today is the fact that Mary was a virgin, and Elizabeth was sterile. God is the One who goes “beyond”, who surprises you through His provident, salvific action.
The goal
Mary already experiences God’s glory. She has reached the goal where we will one day all find ourselves. This is why Mary is today a sign of consolation and hope because if she, a creature like ourselves, is already there, we can also join her there. Let us fix our gaze and our hearts on her who never abandoned her Son Jesus and who today enjoys the joy and glory of Heaven. And let us entrust ourselves to her so that she might help us journey the paths of life knowing how to recognize the great things that God accomplishes in us and around us, to know how to magnify Him with the hymn of our existence.
Prayer to Mary, Assumed into Heaven
O Immaculate Mary, Assumed into heaven,
you who are most blessed in the vision of God:
of God the Father who exalted you among all creatures,
of God the Son who willed that you bear Him as your Son and that you should be His Mother,
of God the Holy Spirit who accomplished the human conception of the Savior in you.
O Mary, most pure
O Mary, most sweet and beautiful
O Mary, strong and thoughtful woman
O Mary, poor and sorrowful
O Mary, virgin and mother
woman very human like Eve, more than Eve.
You are near to God by your grace and by your privileges
in your mysteries
in your mission, in your glory.
O Mary, assumed into the glory of Christ
in the complete and transfigured perfection of our human nature.
O Mary, gate of heaven
mirror of divine light
ark of the Covenant between God and mankind,
let our souls fly after you
let them fly long your radiant path,
transported by a hope that the world does not contain eternal beatitude.
Comfort us from heaven, O merciful Mother,
and guide us along your ways of purity and hope
till the day of that blessed meeting with you
and with your divine Son
our Savior, Jesus. Amen!
(Saint Paul VI)
Vatican News
Focus on three key words:
struggle, resurrection, hope
by Pope Francis
At the end of its Constitution on the Church, the Second Vatican Council left us a very beautiful meditation on Mary Most Holy. Let me just recall the words referring to the mystery we celebrate today: “the immaculate Virgin preserved free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things” (no. 59). Then towards the end, there is: “the Mother of Jesus in the glory which she possesses in body and soul in heaven is the image and the beginning of the church as it is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise, she shines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come” (no. 68). In the light of this most beautiful image of our Mother, we are able to see the message of the biblical readings that we have just heard. We can focus on three key words: struggle, resurrection, hope.
The passage from Revelation presents the vision of the struggle between the woman and the dragon. The figure of the woman, representing the Church, is, on the one hand, glorious and triumphant and yet, on the other, still in travail. And the Church is like that: if in heaven she is already associated in some way with the glory of her Lord, in history she continually lives through the trials and challenges which the conflict between God and the evil one, the perennial enemy, brings. And in the struggle which the disciples must confront – all of us, all the disciples of Jesus, we must face this struggle – Mary does not leave them alone: the Mother of Christ and of the Church is always with us. She walks with us always, she is with us. And in a way, Mary shares this dual condition. She has of course already entered, once and for all, into heavenly glory. But this does not mean that she is distant or detached from us; rather Mary accompanies us, struggles with us, sustains Christians in their fight against the forces of evil. Prayer with Mary, especially the rosary – but listen carefully: the Rosary. Do you pray the Rosary every day? But I’m not sure you do [the people shout “Yes!”]… Really? Well, prayer with Mary, especially the Rosary, has this “suffering” dimension, that is of struggle, a sustaining prayer in the battle against the evil one and his accomplices. The Rosary also sustains us in the battle.
The second reading speaks to us of resurrection. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, insists that being Christian means believing that Christ is truly risen from the dead. Our whole faith is based upon this fundamental truth which is not an idea but an event. Even the mystery of Mary’s Assumption body and soul is fully inscribed in the resurrection of Christ. The Mother’s humanity is “attracted” by the Son in his own passage from death to life. Once and for all, Jesus entered into eternal life with all the humanity he had drawn from Mary; and she, the Mother, who followed him faithfully throughout her life, followed him with her heart, and entered with him into eternal life which we also call heaven, paradise, the Father’s house.
Mary also experienced the martyrdom of the Cross: the martyrdom of her heart, the martyrdom of her soul. She lived her Son’s Passion to the depths of her soul. She was fully united to him in his death, and so she was given the gift of resurrection. Christ is the first fruits from the dead and Mary is the first of the redeemed, the first of “those who are in Christ”. She is our Mother, but we can also say that she is our representative, our sister, our eldest sister, she is the first of the redeemed, who has arrived in heaven.
The Gospel suggests to us the third word: hope. Hope is the virtue of those who, experiencing conflict – the struggle between life and death, good and evil – believe in the resurrection of Christ, in the victory of love. We heard the Song of Mary, the Magnificat: it is the song of hope, it is the song of the People of God walking through history. It is the song many saints, men and women, some famous, and very many others unknown to us but known to God: mums, dads, catechists, missionaries, priests, sisters, young people, even children and grandparents: these have faced the struggle of life while carrying in their heart the hope of the little and the humble. Mary says: “My souls glorifies the Lord” – today, the Church too sings this in every part of the world. This song is particularly strong in places where the Body of Christ is suffering the Passion. For us Christians, wherever the Cross is, there is hope, always. If there is no hope, we are not Christian. That is why I like to say: do not allow yourselves to be robbed of hope. May we not be robbed of hope, because this strength is a grace, a gift from God which carries us forward with our eyes fixed on heaven. And Mary is always there, near those communities, our brothers and sisters, she accompanies them, suffers with them, and sings the Magnificat of hope with them.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, with all our heart let us too unite ourselves to this song of patience and victory, of struggle and joy, that unites the triumphant Church with the pilgrim one, earth with heaven, and that joins our lives to the eternity towards which we journey. Amen.
The Dormition of the Virgin Mary
by Fernando Armellini
Mary is remembered for the last time in the New Testament at the beginning of the book of Acts: in prayer, surrounded by the apostles and the first Christian community (Acts 1:14). Then this sweet and reserved woman leaves the scene, silent and discreet as she entered. Then we don’t know anything about her. Where she spent the last years of her life and how she left this earth were not mentioned in the canonical texts. Many versions of a single theme—the Dormition of the Virgin Mary—spread among Christians from the VI century onwards.
These apocryphal texts handed down a series of news about the last days of Mary and on her death. These are folk tales, largely fictional, whose original nucleus, however, dates back to the second century and composed in the ambient of the mother church of Jerusalem. It also contains some reliable information.
After Easter, Mary, in all probability, lived in Jerusalem, on Mount Zion, perhaps in the same house where her son had celebrated the Last Supper with his apostles. Her time to leave this world came—and here the legendary aspect of the apocryphal stories begins—a heavenly messenger appeared and announced her coming exit. From the most remote lands, the apostles, miraculously transported on clouds, came to her bedside, conversed with her tenderly, staying next to her until the time when Jesus, with a host of angels, came to take her soul.
They accompanied her body in a procession to the brook of Kidron, and there laid her in a tomb cut into the rock. This is probably a historical detail. Since the first century, in fact, her tomb, near the grotto of Gethsemane, has been continuously venerated. In the fourth century, it was isolated from the others and enclosed in a church.
Three days after her burial—and here the legendary news resume—Jesus appears again to also take her body that the apostles had continued to watch. He gave orders to the angels to bring her on the clouds and the apostles to accompany her. The clouds made their way to the east, at the archway of paradise and, arrived in the kingdom of light. Among the songs of the angels and the most delicious scents, they took her down beside the tree of life.
These fictional details have evidently no historical value, however, they bear witness, through images and symbols, of the incipient devotion of the Christian people for the mother of the Lord.
The believers’ reflection on the fate of Mary after death continued to grow over the centuries. It led to the belief in her assumption and, on 1 November 1950, to the papal definition: “The Immaculate Conception Mother of God ever Virgin, finished the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
What does this dogma mean? Is it perhaps that Mary’s body did not suffer corruption or that only she and Jesus would be in heaven in flesh and blood, while the others would be dead in the heaven only with their souls, awaiting reunification with their bodies?
This naive and gross view of the ascension of Jesus and the Assumption of Mary—besides being a legacy of Greek dualistic philosophy and that contradicts the Bible that considers man an inseparable unit—is positively excluded by Paul. Writing to the Corinthians, he clarifies that it is not the material body that is resurrected, but “a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:44).
The text of the papal definition does not speak of “assumed into heaven”—as if there had been a shift in space or an “abduction” of her body from the grave to the dwelling of God—but it says: “assumed into heavenly glory.”
The “heavenly glory” is not a place, but a new condition. Mary did not go to another place, bringing with her the fragile remains that are destined to return to dust. She has not abandoned the community of disciples who continue to walk as pilgrims in this world. She has changed the way to be with them, as her Son did on Easter day.
Mary—the “handmaid of the Lord”—is presented today to all believers not as a privileged one, but as the most excellent model, as the sign of destiny that awaits every person who believes “that the Lord’s word would come true” (Lk 1:45).
The forces of life and death confront each other in a dramatic duel in the world. Pain, disease, infirmities of old age are the skirmishes that announce the final assault of the fearsome dragon. Eventually, the fight becomes one-sided and death always grabs its prey. Does God, “lover of life,” impassively assist this defeat of the creatures in whose face his image is imprinted? The answer to this question is given to us today in Mary. In her, we are invited to contemplate the triumph of the God of life.
Gospel: Luke 1:39-56
Before the evidence of the death and corruption of a body in the tomb, it takes a lot of courage to believe that the Lord is the God of life and to hope for a life beyond life. In today’s feast, we are offered as a model the one who has always trusted in God.
Elizabeth proclaims her blessed because “she believed that the Lord’s word would come true!” (v. 45). Mary responds to her by raising a hymn of praise to the Lord.
Every evening the Christian community sings it at the conclusion of vespers. It is to keep alive in the faithful, perhaps disturbed by the vicissitudes of the day, the gaze of faith in which Mary has been able to read the events of her life and the history of her people.
It begins with a cry of joy: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord” (v. 47). Literally, the phrase reads: “I render the Lord great.” Our heart tends to imagine him small, modeling him tailored to our meanness and pettiness: a generous God with the good and angry, implacable avenger with those who transgress his orders, just as we are.
Mary has a pure look; she has experienced the immensity of God’s love. She understood that he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, for this, she feels the irrepressible need to proclaim his greatness.
Anyone who assimilates the gaze of Mary and discovers that the Lord loves people without conditions exults—like her—in God his savior. He is pleased because salvation does not depend on his abilities and good works, but it is anchored in the unfailing faithfulness of God. This certainty puts an end to the anxieties, which are awakened by the desire to build one’s own perfection and is the source of inner serenity, of peace, of unbounded joy.
After having magnified the Lord, Mary clarifies the motive for which she raises a hymn of praise to him: “He has looked upon his servant in her lowliness” (v. 48). God’s gaze is not attracted by the moral virtues and the qualities of a person, but by his poverty, his needs to be enriched by the gifts of heaven. Mary knows she is a stupendous woman, but she has no reason to boast. She is conscious of not having any merit and recognizes that everything in her is a free gift of the Lord.
She said to the angel of the annunciation: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord;” in her song of praise the self-presentation returns: I am the servant. It is the title of honor that the Bible reserves to those who have placed their lives at God’s disposal.
“People forever will call me blessed” because, looking at her, those who are despised for their distressing condition, physical or moral, will cease to feel defeated and rejected by God. They will realize to be in the unique position to become the recipients of the Lord’s tenderness.
The Mighty One has done great things for me (v. 49). ‘Great things’ is the expression with which the Bible presents the extraordinary interventions of God: “For wonders are past all reckoning, his miracles beyond all counting” (Job 5:9). He is not the Almighty who can do what he wants. He is the powerful that, respectful of the laws of creation and of human freedom, always manages to make unexpected and surprising prodigies of love.
The second part of the passage begins (vv. 50-55) where Mary reviews the Lord’s wonderful works of love. She explains first why he is so attentive and caring. He generously distributes his benefits because he is merciful: From age to age his mercy extends to those who live in his presence (v. 50).
Merciful for us is the one who is moved in the face of misfortune, the pain, the condition of the poor and those affected by disasters. Yet, this feeling would be in vain if we do not move to intervene on behalf of those in need of help.
In the Bible, God presents himself as “merciful and gracious” (Ex 34:6) and the Hebrew words that are used, not only express an intense and deep emotion—that which the mother feels for the child she is carrying—but also the action that this feeling causes, the irresistible impulse to rescue the loved one. Throughout the ages, those who fear the Lord—that is, those who trusted him and his word—have always experienced his tenderness and his care.
The song goes on to list seven of God’s saving interventions.
He has acted with power and done wonders (v. 51).
The Bible often mentions the arm of God, symbol of the strength with which he intervenes to free the oppressed, protect the weak, defend those who suffer injustice.
Mary knows the history of her people and recalls that the Lord went to Egypt to choose Israel “by the strength of trials and signs, by wonders and by wars, with a firm hand and an outstretched arm” (Dt 4:34). She is not even touched by the doubt that evil will prevail over good, the lie over the truth, prevarication over righteousness, arrogance over meekness. She knows that the arm of the Lord keeps a firm grip on the destinies of the world and the life of every person.
He has scattered the proud (v. 51).
With this term the Bible indicates the insolent, those who are not interested in God; they speak with pride and look down on everyone. The Lord—promises Mary—scatters them. It is not an invitation to wait patiently for God to intervene to break down and reduce to an object of ridicule those who prevail. The Lord does not triumph by humiliating those who mock him, but turns his fatherly word and converts them with his love. It is the new world that Mary announces, the world from which the haughty and overbearing are dispersed—are made to disappear. All are turned into humble servants of their brothers.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones and lifted those who are downtrodden (v. 52).
History teaches that the strong have always dominated, and the weak were subjugated. Mary knows it. She belongs to a people tyrannized by the great empires. Now—she assures—God is on the side of the poor and has put into action a revolution; he overturned the balance of power: the powerful are overthrown and the miserable lifted.
Has the moment of revenge arrived? With God’s help, will the weak lift their head, conquer the powerful and subject those who have oppressed them? If that were the result of the divine intervention, we would not see a new event, but only the replacement of a class of exploiters by another. God does not enter history to play the part of the hero in that insane script that, always, people have staged. He does not intervene with force to change the actors, but to introduce a completely different script: the play in which we rage to climb up and rule the roost. Now he competes to go down at the bottom, and to become servants for love, to be bread for the hungry. Great and worthy of honor is no longer the one seated on a throne, but one who stays below and responds with joy to the demands of those who need him.
This is the real novelty: a new heart given to all, a heart like that of Christ, a heart of servants. Will we ever see this kind of humanity? Mary is so certain that God will build her that speaks to the past—”has overturned, has raised”—as if this prodigious transformation of the world was already made. She recalls she kept well in mind the words of the heavenly messenger: “With God nothing is impossible” (Lk 1:37).
He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty (v. 53).
“The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord, the world and all that dwells in it” (Ps 24:1). If everything belongs to God, humans are not masters of anything; they are guests, diners at the table that the generous father has laid for his children. He bestows his gifts to everyone so that they equally participate; he who gathers them for himself, who refuses to share them takes possession of goods not his, commits robbery.
Greed—the root of all evil (1 Tim 6:10)—leads to grabbing more than necessary and to enrich oneself. Injustice, inequality, discrimination, and a world at odds with the will of God are the results of unquenchable greed. Mary sees a new world rising, a world in which diners share what the Father puts at their disposal; a world where everyone is satiated with bread, freedom, and love.
She has a message of hope for the rich: God sends them away empty. It is not a threat of punishment; it is a proclamation of salvation. The assets they have accumulated—often by extortion and robbery—have been for them a source of pleasure, but also of cares and anxieties; they have become a bulky weight, a burden that has weighed down their hearts, making them insensitive to the needs of the brothers.
God sends them away empty; he lightens them of the burden of riches, warning that “we have brought nothing into the world, and we will leave it with nothing” (1 Tim 6:7), making them understand that “even though you have many possessions, it is not that which gives you life” (Lk 12:15) and convincing them that “happiness lies more in giving than in receiving” (Acts 20:35).
The song closes with a reflection on God’s faithfulness to the promises made to the patriarchs and to David(vv. 54-55).
Israel is a people who remembers. The Lord often invites her not to forget the wonders he has accomplished and the promises made to the fathers of old (Dt 4:9; 7:18). Mary—daughter of this people—also remembers and is certain that God does not forget the oath he swore to Abraham and his descendants. The child she is carrying in her womb is the faithful response of God to the commitments he has undertaken with his people.
Not just now, but forever, for eternity—ensures Mary—God will remain faithful. He will never fail in his covenant of love with people and, certainly, will not abandon them even in death.
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