The Assumption

We await the feast of the Assumption tomorrow. I remember last year driving around in Wheat Ridge and coming across a Protestant Church that had put up on their billboard: "Assumption is the mother of all evil." Interesting, isn't it? It is beyond my comprehending that Christians, those who love Jesus Christ, can so greatly overlook one of the greatest gift He desires to give to us in our Blessed Mother, Mary.

If we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, which we ought to do as Catholics, then we ought also to accept the reality that in our baptism we have been given over to Christ. We belong to Him; in fact, we have become a part of Him if we are willing to respond in love by our life. As has long been the Catholic Church's teaching, even before Protestantism began, we participate in the life of Jesus Christ by our living His example in our own life situation. Then, on top of all of that, we are also given His mother to be our own mother, as the Gospel of John clearly states. If we seek to be the beloved disciple of Jesus, which I have never met one practicing Christian who doesn't want to be, then we too must take Mary into our own home - our soul. We must accept her as our own mother, just as Jesus accepted her as a gift from God the Father. Does it get more simple? Eternal God becomes man, and entrusts himself to the care of the Blessed Mother. We become participants in God's life and should do as he did in all things, including entrusting ourselves to the Blessed Mother.

What of the Assumption then? Did you know that this teaching has been believed, like all Marian Dogmas, since the earliest days of Christianity? Why then did Pope Pius XII see fit to declare this doctrine to upgraded to the level of a dogma? A dogma being "a truth appertaining to faith or morals, revealed by God, transmitted from the Apostles in the Scriptures or by tradition, and proposed by the Church for the acceptance of the faithful."

The fact of the matter is that during the 1950's, Europe was still reeling from the Second World War. Mankind had just overcome some of the most brutual destruction the world had ever seen. Many people were wondering, "What is the point of life?" Everything seemed very hopeless as a whole continent and world tried to rebuild from the rubble of war. Yet, as she always does, Holy Mother Church saw the answer for mankind - Hope, especially Hope in Christ. Every hope that we dare to place on Jesus Christ will not be dashed, for He never ceases to labor for us, if we are willing to persevere in prayer. Thus, the Holy Father proposed for the world the Dogma of the Assumption. Reminding all of mankind that Mary was and is the model Christian, seeking to do all that Christ desired and desires of her. It was Mary who was first able to say with her whole body and soul to the Archangel Gabriel, "Let it be done to me according to thy word."

We too, in our own day, can realize and recieve this great hope. All that need be done is to overcome our own sorrow, our own fear, our own will, and allow ourselves to labor for love - namely to labor for Jesus Christ himself. In our desire to care for one another we find that God will bless us in ways we will never expect. Jesus himself tells us:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?' or 'What are we to drink?' or 'What are we to wear?' All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. "

Let us Christians accept Mary for the gift of Motherly Love that Jesus desires for her to be for all of us who desire to be his beloved disciple. The Solemnity of the Assumption allows us to re-consider that there is nothing in our lives that cannot be overcome by Him who has overcome the world. May we allow ourselves to sit at the feet of Jesus and to accept all that He desires for our greatest joy and our sanctification as we continue to say to Him, "Let it be done to me according to thy will."