Tuesday 15th August THE ASSUMPTION
Fr Julian Browning
Revelation 11 : 19a & 12 : 1 & 3 – 6a & 10ab ; I Corinthians 15 : 20 – 27a ; Luke 1 : 39 – 56
Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord.
We see a young woman who knows that everything she has is a gift from God
How do you solve a problem called Maria? The Feast of the Assumption
is a problem for the English. It's something that first happens to you
when you go abroad. The serious English tourist approaches the museum
of dusty Etruscan antiquities, and it's closed again because it's the
feast of the Assumption and all Catholic Europe is on holiday and the
churches and cafes are full. How did we come to miss out on all this.
The Feast of the Assumption commemorates Mary's death and her entrance
into Heaven. In England the Virgin Mary came to stand for Popery and
all that was oppressive and foreign to the English. The reformers took
the Feast out of the BCP of 1549. But it's back again now in the Church
of England lectionary as the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The
Assumption bit, the going up to heaven, has given Europe a lot of
wonderful ceilings, and these lovely paintings are there to show us how
significant Mary is in the story of God, not just when she was alive
but for ever. God takes her up. She is assured of her place in Heaven
for ever.
The point of a doctrine, any doctrine, is that we can learn something
from it. Then we can explain to others who Mary is. The story of the
Virgin Mary is not a fairy story. Mary is an essential human character
in the story of God redeeming this world. She's a real woman, not a
goddess. If you look at Renaissance paintings of Mary, there is a young
woman. She shines in the heavens, but the glory is reflected from her
son Jesus. If Jesus Christ is like the sun in the sky, then Mary is
like the moon. The Feast of the Assumption celebrates that glory, that
reflected light. As the Book of Revelation says, there stands 'a woman
clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a
crown of twelve stars'. We sometimes overdo the imagery of shining
lights in our faith, but it works in the story of Mary. In her life
eternity breaks through into our own world. Two little stories
show God and Mary as partners in the story of our redemption. The first
story is of course the birth of Jesus. 'Hail Mary full of grace'. 'Ave
Maria'. What did it mean? If you are 'full of grace', it means you are
'all gift', everything you have has been given to you, everything you
have comes from outside you, from God himself. Mary is blessed because
of the great things God has done for her. We see a young woman who
knows that everything she has is a gift from God, and therefore 'My
soul magnifies the Lord...' Mary stands for all of us. Everything we
have has been given to us, it comes to us from God. The church is 'full
of grace', the community of God's children, those who accept the gift
of God's love. Mary gave Christ to the world. We show Christ to the
world today.
But Mary was there at the death of Jesus too. You will remember how she
was standing at the foot of the Cross. 'When Jesus saw his mother and
the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, Woman
behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, 'behold your mother'.
And from that hour the disciple took her into her own home. The beloved
disciple stands for us, the readers of the Gospel as well as for John,
the writer of the Gospel. Jesus says to us, behold your mother. A
mother is a child's greatest influence. Here is your mother. Here is an
example of trust and selflessness, which will give you a proper start
in your spiritual life.
Without the example of Mary, our spiritual lives are lacking in
balance, overshadowed by images of fatherhood, rather cramped by
theology and lacking in humanity. There is a Puritanical streak,
by no means a bad thing, in many of us, and devotion to Our Lady, the
legends, the shrines, the statues and so on, can irritate our
overrefined tastes. But that can be just an excuse for leaving her out
of our story. Mary is not expendable. If she is left out of God's
story, then we are the losers. We are worried sometimes, I think, about
getting out of our depth, leaving the safety of the side of the pool,
losing our rational selves, and getting caught up in a sentimentality
which is foreign to us. But is it really that threatening? We are
called to live the Risen Life. Other people's devotion to Our Lady is a
matter for them, not for us. A better move for each of us is to sort
out the place which Mary has in the story of God in our own lives. Do
we know her, or not? We have to receive her into our home, as Jesus
instructed John to do. She holds a place in our Risen Life. Think about
Mary as she appears in the Gospels. Mary presenting Jesus in the
temple; Mary treasuring what she sees and hears in her heart; Mary
hurrying to help Elizabeth in her need, Mary standing beside the Cross,
Mary waiting with the apostles for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
That's what we should be doing. That's why Mary is called a model of
the Church.
The Feast of the Assumption gathers all these events together. Mary's
life as the Mother of God has the seal of God's approval for ever. She
gave Christ to the world. We give Christ to the world today. We
shall always have a hard time explaining Mary in pagan England, but
that's our problem, not Maria's. Perhaps the best way forward is just
to follow her example, and try to show the world a human face, a human
life obedient to God's will and reflecting His love.