Dai­ly Reflec­tion
August 22, 2013

Today is the Octave day of the Feast of the Assump­tion of Mary. Thus the day is cel­e­brat­ed as the memo­r­i­al of the Mary as Queen of Heav­en. Although set aside as a spe­cif­ic feast in rel­a­tive­ly recent years (1954) the title and hon­or of Mary has Queen goes back to some of the ear­ly Fathers of the Church, and was cer­tain­ly cel­e­brat­ed in the Medieval peri­od when Mary became cen­tral to Catholic devo­tion­al life.

This litur­gi­cal memo­r­i­al offers us an oppor­tu­ni­ty to once again reflect how Mary has been held through the cen­turies as a kind of type or sacra­ment of the Church. She is the first of those saved from sin by Jesus’ incar­na­tion (even before her own birth, since God’s activ­i­ty is not lim­it­ed to the bound­aries of time) and she is the first raised from the dead, body and soul (which we cel­e­brate in the Feast of the Assump­tion). The way we hon­or Mary, then, reflects how we might think of the mys­ti­cal char­ac­ter of the Church. For most of us, the Church is too often encoun­tered as a human com­mu­ni­ty with the lim­its and warts of human struc­tures. Mem­bers who are inad­e­quate­ly formed and thus half-heart­ed in their com­mit­ments, lead­ers who are also less than per­fect­ly formed and pur­su­ing lead­er­ship for oth­er rea­sons than the ser­vice of God’s reign. But at its core, the Church is so much more. It is the active, con­tin­ued pres­ence of the Res­ur­rect­ed Christ in time and his­to­ry. The Church is both Body and Bride of Christ – to use two of the favorite metaphors of the Tra­di­tion. Mary keeps that aware­ness alive as long as we remem­ber that she is the first mem­ber of the Church and its truest, pure­ly human mem­ber. Mary had to be saved from sin (the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion cel­e­brates that), lived a lim­it­ed and con­fus­ing human life where­in she had to hold things in her heart and pon­der them in order for them to make sense. She had to stand by help­less­ly as her own son is slaugh­tered in front of her, she had to await her own death and res­ur­rec­tion after Jesus Ascend­ed to the Father. Mary stands as wit­ness and sure­ty for us that the promise of the full­ness of life with God is intend­ed for the whole human race.

Today’s Gospel text, the one assigned to the day in Ordi­nary time, rather than a spe­cial Gospel of the memo­r­i­al, is in an inter­est­ing way very appro­pri­ate to the memo­r­i­al. Jesus tells the para­ble of the King’s wed­ding feast to pre­sum­ably chal­lenge the lead­ers of Israel who can­not see that Jesus is the ful­fill­ment of the mes­sian­ic promise. The wed­ding is the “mar­riage” of God Son and God’s peo­ple in such a way that the peo­ple are divinized or trans­formed through the Son into His very being. The sym­bol of the wed­ding gar­ment has long been under­stood as tak­ing on the life of the Spir­it through Bap­tism (thus the tra­di­tion­al wed­ding dress is an “echo” of the bap­tismal gown, as is the alb, and even the pall on the cof­fin of the deceased). The sym­bol of the gar­ment is the sym­bol for a trans­formed body (new skin) – so in this case the cloth­ing DOES make the per­son. At least it is under­stood to make the per­son ful­ly what he or she was cre­at­ed to be – a mem­ber of Christ’s body with­in the Trini­tar­i­an life. 

This is the wed­ding feast! To show up at the feast with­out accept­ing the gar­ment of divine life (the fel­low didn’t have to come up with his own gar­ment – it would have been giv­en at the door) is not pos­si­ble. In oth­er words, we aren’t auto­mat­i­cal­ly divinized, there is some action on the part of our own free­dom that accepts what God is offer­ing. One has to embrace the life of God’s reign with Jesus and through the Holy Spir­it. Mary, sym­bol for the Church, is the “bride” who is crowned queen of God’s reign – and all of us are invit­ed to be as Mary is, per­fect­ly docile to the desire of God for us – which ulti­mate­ly is our per­fect joy in par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Ban­quet of God. 

Now sure­ly some­one will wor­ry that this is all too eccle­sial, and what about those who are not bap­tized Chris­tians? Actu­al­ly, since sal­va­tion is God’s job – even if humans have to accept the offer – we pre­sume that God has ways of accom­plish­ing the offer beyond the bound­aries of overt Chris­tian­i­ty. But what we are con­fi­dent of, is that God has promised the invi­ta­tion to the wed­ding to those who join Jesus in liv­ing and pro­claim­ing God’s reign – and the feast is here and now, not just eternally!

So with the Psalmist we sing: “Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will!”