How do you participate in the life of the Lord?
The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which includes both a set of Vigil readings and a set of readings for Sunday, is first and foremost about who we are as a Church.
The Vigil readings focus on Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant. In the First Book of Chronicles, the Ark of the Covenant is set within the tent David has pitched for it in Jerusalem. The Ark contains the Decalogue (the law of Moses, which represents both the old covenant and Israel’s identity as a people), a golden vase with manna (which represents wisdom), and Aaron’s rod (which represents Christ’s sacerdotal role). Like the Ark, Mary is the vessel that carries Jesus; the manna is a parallel for the Body of Christ. David is uniting Israel around the Ark in Jerusalem, developing the people’s corporate identity, just as Christ unites us as a people. Psalm 132 charts the movement of the Ark from Ephrathah to Jaar to Jerusalem; the Lord has chosen Zion as a hill on which the temple is to sit forever; here, the parallel is to the image of Mary as the Church, the resting place in which God dwells forever. The physical object leads to a spiritual concept that unites the people in covenant with God. The Gospel of Luke reminds us that Mary is blessed because she hears the will of God and observes it; she believes in God and that belief shapes the way she lives. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds us that we are baptized into the death and rising of Jesus; we are more than just flesh, we are clothed in immortality. To have faith is to be open to and aware of the Holy Spirit working with us, and aware of God’s infinite love that will redeem us. Mary was born without original sin; she is mortal yet clothed in immortality her whole life long because God is at work in her her whole life long.
Our Sunday readings, on the other hand, point to all the ways in which Mary participates in the life of God. Luke’s Gospel recounts Mary’s visit to Elizabeth; moved by the active power of God within her, Mary reaches out to her kinswoman, participating in salvation history from the very first. We are also called to participate by opening our hearts, and must choose to do so, always recognizing that it is not we who accomplish great things, but God active in us, as he was in Mary. The Book of Revelation describes a woman in labor, wailing aloud in pain, threatened by a huge red dragon who would take her child, but God saves her, redeeming the Church. Evil will not be victorious because Christ dwells forever in the hearts of those who live their baptism; his rule is absolute. Mary shares fully in what it means to be God’s creation. Paul reminds the Corinthians that Christ has been raised from the dead; Mary is the first to share in Christ’s immortality, an immortality promised to us as the Body of Christ, the Church, on earth: all shall be brought to life. In the person of Mary, we see Christ victorious; ever loyal to her King, Mary will be Queen of Heaven, echoing Psalm 45: The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.
The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary clearly lays out for us our identity as church; it also reminds us that Mary represents the promise that we too will one day rise and be one with Jesus. Mary, God’s vessel, will be crowned Queen of Heaven for her commitment to the Lord. Our beliefs must similarly shape the way with live – with the same integrity, the same commitment, the same love for the Lord that Mary had, that we too might hear the will of God and observe it.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s 2010 Scripture class for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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