Today we celebrate the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. It is a wonderful feast and the fitting way to remember her "dormition" – her falling asleep for the last time on this earth, and then her "elevation into the realms of heaven!" It must have been so exciting for Jesus to welcome his mother to her true and now lasting home – safe with him, and her husband Joseph – always now to be considered blessed and honored!
It is interesting: the woman – in the reading from the Book of Revelation - who appears clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, having a crown with twelve stars can be considered to be both symbolic of Mary (reigning as queen of heaven), but also of our Mother the Church, who through travail and labor gives birth to its own self in the fullness and completeness of her perfection. This is accomplished
by her obedient adherence to the words and commands of the one who comes to purify her, Christ the King of the Universe, who resides in her and moves her at every moment toward this time and experience of great fulfillment!
In the second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, that Mary was sinless her entire life - and worthy to be the Mother of God and Mother of the Church - was because she always shared fully in the merits of the redemption of her own Son, who was himself the firstfuit of the new creation. She always dedicated herself to the will of God the Father; she was always filled with the Holy Spirit; she was always in direct and intimate communion with her Son Jesus, even when he left her to undertake his public ministry - which ended in his brutal death on the Cross, but subsequent resurrection from the dead, in which she firmly believed!
She now waits with him in heaven – until all of his enemies are placed beneath his feet and the last enemy, death, is destroyed – and the faithful begin to live a glorious life in the grand communion of heaven – with her, her son and all of the saints and angels forever.
When Mary, in the gospel passage, visits her cousin Elizabeth – Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit - cries out: BELSSED ARE YOU AMONG WOMEN, AND BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF YOUR WOMB! Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled!
Today we too call Mary blessed, and we call the fruit of her womb: LORD, BROTHER, FRIEND! We call him JESUS because he saves us from our sins and restores us to life! And we believe that all that was and is spoken to us about him is
true and that all of the promises that have ever been made by God to us will be fulfilled!
For God has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our Father, to Abraham, and his children forever!
Mary is taken up to heaven; a chorus of angels exults!
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