Homily for the Assumption
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
August 15, 2021
Vigil and Day Masses
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Our Lady of the Assumption,
Bronx
Today we celebrate one of those “sacred mysteries”
that make up our faith. Usually, the
“mysteries” means the sacraments, which convey God’s own life to us. God becomes present to us, and we interact
with God.
“Mysteries” also means the doctrines of our faith, including our celebration today of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s full participation in God’s own life, her complete and final presence before God in heaven.
We believe that, by God’s grace and a unique
privilege Mary was exempt from original sin and lived in complete union of
heart, word, and action with God’s plan for her and, thru her, his plan for the
redemption of humanity. She was
conceived without sin, and she lived without sin. Our own experience tells us this isn’t
possible for human beings. But the
archangel Gabriel told Mary, “Nothing will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:37),
and God’s power preserved her from any taint of sin from her conception in the
womb of St. Ann until the end of her life.
When Jesus proclaimed, “Blessed are those who hear
the word of God and observe it” (Luke 11:28), there was and has been no one of
whom that has been truer than his own mother.
Therefore we believe that God has granted her a
further privilege—another one of those “mysteries” of our faith. If she lived without sin, death could not
fasten its unholy grip upon her. We
don’t hold that Mary did not die, like any of us and, indeed, as Jesus himself
died. She may have died and even been
placed in a tomb, as Jesus was. What we
do hold is that God lifted her
up,
took hold of her entire self—her body as well as her soul—and brought her into
heaven just as Jesus was raised. If Mary
did in fact die, her sleeping in death was very brief. In fact, in the Eastern Churches, both
Catholic and Orthodox, this mystery is called Mary’s Dormition, her falling
asleep.
Why
does this matter? St. Paul writes to the
Corinthians that “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of
those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20), that is, the 1st portion of the
harvest of all humanity that God has reaped and brought into his granary, so to
speak. Christ is the 1st to rise, and
his holy Mother is the 2d because death can’t bind someone without sin. St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “The wages of
sin is death” (6:23). Someone who is
sinless, like Mary, doesn’t get paid in permanent death.
As
for us, well, we are sinners, and we will die.
Our death, however, will be only temporary—longer lasting, as we count
years, than Mary’s—but because we have been redeemed by the death and
resurrection of our Lord Jesus, he will raise us also to life. Mary, our sister, has been the 1st after
Jesus himself to walk that highway to heaven.
But we will follow her if we, like her, have tried to “hear the word of
God and observe it.” God has promised us
that Christ “has put all his enemies under his feet” and “the last enemy to be
destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:25-26).
We
celebrate Mary’s complete victory over death by the grace of her Son Jesus, and
we look forward to our own complete victory on Judgment Day, when Christ will
come to raise all his own followers.
1 comment:
Loved your homily on the Assumption of Mary. It gives me a better understanding that more than likely Mary died briefly as her Son did and that she now is bodily in heaven. The scripture passages contributed to clarity for me.
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