15th August THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Fr Andrew Hammond, Assistant Curate, S. John's Wood

Revelations  11  :  19  -  12  :  6  &  10 ; Galatians  4  :  4 – 7 ; Luke  1  :  46 - 55


In Italy on this day, which they call the Ferr’agosto, the country celebrates and the roads come to a standstill. And how right, when we consider what a traffic-stopping event the Assumption of Our Lady might be thought to be. If we ponder this mystery, we really do have to stop what we’re doing and gaze in wonder.

It signifies that our destiny, our way of moving towards fulfilment as adopted children of God, is as intrinsically conjoined bodies and souls.

Like many of the most important things we can say of our faith, to say that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven talks of divine action in human affairs – and so contains a whole universe of truth and meaning which can never be captured or contained by our merely human language.We can only gesture towards it with our words. It’s monumentally hard to explain what we mean, but we know – by the grace of God, by His Spirit crying within us Abba, Father - we know that we mean it.

This conjunction of divine reality and human language is in itself a kind of metaphor, or perhaps even an icon, of God’s actual engagement with the human world in the Incarnation. And of that engagement, Mary is the nexus. By her gracious ‘yes’, her ‘let it be to me according to thy will’, Mary physically enables God to become man in the conception and birth of Jesus Christ. This physicality is fundamental. As the early Church Fathers said, God became human that we might become divine.

This physicality, this literal coming of God amongst us – Immanuel, God with us – this physicality is not accidental. And the process by which we journey in faith, as we are drawn by the Spirit deeper into the heart of God, and into the mystery of his purposes, and as we are formed in Christ’s likeness, is a process as much of body as of soul.

This is what the doctrine of Our Lady’s Assumption really confirms, and assures us of. It is a tradition which took time to take hold, and surely reflects the gradual deepening sense of her surpassing worth in God’s eyes, and her place as Queen of Heaven. If ever I start to draw back from some of the more mawkish expressions of Marian piety, or if I resist the uncompromising rigour of the dogmas of Marian devotion, - then I just have to reflect on the sheer fact, which is in itself so overwhelming and world-changing, that Mary gave birth to our Lord and Saviour.  She was His mother. She is His mother.

An image which might help our reflections is that of a crucible. You know what I mean, I hope – the little ceramic dish in which things can be tested and refined under conditions of the most intense, concentrated heat. In the Old Testament we learn of the history and experience of the Jews as just such a crucible. A tiny thing, a crucible, and Israel was a tiny place – to the wider world, quite insignificant – but here the full intensity of God’s mercy and justice was trained on a chosen people. Then, as the new covenant is begun, one woman takes on that role. God’s focus is channelled on her, and in her ‘yes’, in her life of discipleship, the human response to God is clarified, refined, made perfect.

This emphasis on the physical is important because it is no accident, no mere means to an end, that God came among us as a man. It signifies that our destiny, our way of moving towards fulfilment as adopted children of God, is as intrinsically conjoined bodies and souls.

Mary, as the apotheosis of a human response to grace, was in some way lifted body and soul and translated into the realms of heaven. This was a physical translation, a translation into the resurrection body which Jesus had already so mysteriously revealed in the appearances between his rising from death and his Ascension. It is the state to which we must look forward in hope and joyful anticipation - never complacent, always penitent, sustained by the Holy Spirit in that place between cross and resurrection, - but assured that the path lying ahead of us is illuminated by the example of Mary, and made possible for us to travel along by the saving power of Jesus Christ; and assisted by Our Lady’s intercession on our behalf at the throne of glory in heaven.