The late Pope John Paul II, in "Mother of the Redeemer,"
the encyclical he wrote for the Marian Year (1987), echoed the words
of Pope Pius XII in his 1950 "definition" of the dogma
of the Assumption of Mary: "Preserved free from all guilt of
original sin, the Immaculate Virgin was taken up body and soul into
heavenly glory upon the completion of her earthly sojourn. She was
exalted by the Lord as Queen of the Universe, in order that she
might be more thoroughly conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords
and the conqueror of sin and death." That is the mystery we
celebrate today, not a holy day of obligation (because it falls
on a Monday), but an invitation to us to reflect upon our own destiny
in light of that of Mary.
We are "glory-bound!" A line in the first reading once
applied to Mary can be applied to each of us: "where she had
a (special) place prepared by God." I invite us all today to
consider this: the feast we celebrate today does not say too much
about Mary, as some have thought, but, rather, too little about
us. That is the whole point of what Paul says in today's second
reading: "For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall
all be brought to life." Consider that Paul is proclaiming
here, as elsewhere in his letters, the resurrection of the body,
not the immortality of the soul. So what the Catholic Church has
defined as the "Assumption of Mary Into Heaven" (which
is the 4th glorious mystery of the rosary), is very simply a specific
application, based on the great dignity and special role of Mary
as the Mother of Jesus, of our general belief in the resurrection.
We end our profession of the Nicene Creed by saying: "We look
for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
Amen."
So, today, we are invited by God to reflect upon what we all hope
for after our earthly sojourn and to pray in a more intense way
that we may live more intentionally and more intensely the discipleship
into Christ promised and given by our Baptism. Then the words of
Elizabeth to her cousin, Mary, will be fulfilled in each of us:
"Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by
the Lord would be fulfilled." Then, too, each of us can say
slowly, devotedly, and personally the magnificent hymn of Mary,
knowing deep in our hearts that we too "proclaim the greatness
of the Lord" and rejoice in God our Savior.
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