August 15, 2016
This homily for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was preached on August 15, 2012, at then-Blessed John XXIII University Parish in Knoxville, TN. It is based on the solemnity’s scripture passages: Revelation 11:19a, 12:1-6a, 10ab; Psalm 45; 1 Cor 15:20-27; and Luke 1:39-56
What’s your image of what the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary? For years, I’d had an image that was a weird kind of mix between those traditional statues with Mary demurely standing on a pedestal… and Julie Andrews sailing away with her umbrella at the end of the movie Mary Poppins. No, the point of today’s feast is not “Up, Up, and Away”!
The key to all of our Marian feasts in the Church calendar is this: instead of focusing on how Mary may be different from the rest of us, we need to look for what we have in common with her. So, as we listen to our readings today, let’s keep two things in mind. First, the awesome image in our first reading from Revelation, about the woman clothed with the sun, is probably not a representation of Mary. The symbolism of Revelation is always a thorny issue, but our best guess is that this woman is a representation of all of us within the Church. Each of us has a place prepared by God. Secondly, our reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is the key reading for what we celebrate today.
Let us take a moment to celebrate the graces and mercies God has showered upon each of us, graces we expect to receive for the rest of our lives and beyond.
We’re nine months into the new English translation of the Mass. How are you doing with it? I’m involved in many Masses every week, but I still struggle with some of the words and phraseology.
But there’s one part of the new translation that I absolutely love. It’s the last sentence of the Nicene Creed. It rolls off my tongue easily, and I find it powerful to declare this belief out loud: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”
And that statement, believe or not, is at the heart of what we’re celebrating today. We’re going to explore this in three parts: (1) the life of the world to come, (2) the resurrection of the dead, (3) how Mary’s assumption can help strengthen our faith in the resurrection of the dead.
I definitely believe in the life of the world to come. We may doubt from time to time that we will each live forever, but for me, all I need to do is think about some of the wonderful people in my life who have already died. Our God is a loving God, and it simply can’t be that death is the end of the existence of these wonderful people.
I’ll never forget what my pastor said about ten years ago. He said, “The day my mother died, I knew there was a heaven.” What he said made sense to me then. It has made even more sense to me ever since my own mother died in September of 2009. At the Easter Vigil seven months later, I found myself breaking into joyful tears as we sang the final song: “We shall rise again on the last day. We will find an open door there.”God has prepared a place for each of us to live with God forever. A place for my mom. A place for my dad. A place for me. I firmly believe that if I live a life of faithful discipleship, I will be reunited with my parents and with everyone else who has been dear to me.
Let’s move on to the idea of “the resurrection of the dead.” We don’t know how time works after we die, but we believe that we will all eventually be resurrected at a time that we call “the last day.” We will each be transformed by God. We don’t understand the when, the where, or the how of the resurrection, but we’re not going to be disembodied souls: we will have eternal life, body and soul together. In a lot of ways, it just doesn’t make sense to us, and even though the bodily resurrection is a central tenet of our faith, Christians have continually struggled to understand the physics of how this will work. It’s easier to believe that our souls are something separate from our bodies, that our souls will somehow be “released” from our bodies when we die.
It’s easier to believe that only our souls will have eternal life, separate from our bodies. But that easier concept forces us in a subtle way to reject another central belief of our faith. We believe that God created everything, and that everything created by God is good. That includes us. We believe that we are created in the image of God, and we believe that God declared us to be “very good.” Our bodies are good. They are essential to how God created each of us. When we start to think of “the life of the world to come” without our bodies being there, we run the risk of disconnecting ourselves from our emotions and our experiences, the very things that define who we are, who God has created us to be!
Now, we don’t understand how our bodies will be transformed in “the life of the world to come.” The Bible indicates that somehow we’ll look different after we’re resurrected. The disciples sometimes failed to recognize the resurrected Jesus. But in other ways, we’ll look exactly the same. Before the disciples recognized Jesus, they thought he was another person, not some kind of angel or extra terrestrial!
It’s hard to believe in the resurrection of the body, since we can’t comprehend how it will work. We’re no different than those early Christians in Corinth. In our second reading today, St. Paul addresses their doubts about the resurrection of the dead. The Corinthians could believe that Jesus Christ had been resurrected from the dead, but they struggled to believe that they would also be resurrected from the dead.
And this is where Mary can help us. We believe that Mary cooperated fully in God’s plan. Even if we can’t think of ourselves as created “very good” by God, a lot of us can believe that Mary was created “very good” by God.
Again, we don’t understand where, when, or how we’ll enter into “the life of the world to come.” But we believe that Mary’s already enjoying that life.
I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. We shall rise again on the last day. God has prepared a place for each of us. We will find an open door there. And when we arrive, Mary will already be there, welcoming us with open arms.