Solemnity of the Assumption (August 15)
First: Acts 11: 19; 12: 1-6, 10; Second: 1 Cor 15: 20-26; Gospel: Lk 1: 39-56
THEME of the READINGS
"For the Almighty has done great things for me" (Lk 1: 49). This is the main message of Mary’s Assumption. He as made her the Mother of God, as we are reminded by the Gospel. He has made her the Mother of the Church, which like Mary, continues giving birth to Christ in the midst of pain and the attacks of the dragon, until the end of time (second reading). He has allowed her to share the glory of her risen Son by means of her Assumption to Heaven, in body and soul. In her humbleness, Mary recognizes and praises the Lord for the great things that he has done for her (Gospel).
DOCTRinal MESSAGE
In the liturgical cycle, the Church brings to our attention the greatness of Mary: her Immaculate Conception (December 8), her divine Motherhood (January 1), her virginity in the Annunciation (March 25), and finally her Assumption into heaven (August 15). The Assumption, therefore, is the culmination of God’s mighty work in Mary. What does the greatness of the Mother of Christ and of the Church consist in?
It is her sharing and partaking in the triumph of her Son, Jesus Christ. Christ has risen. Christ has departed from this world to the kingdom of his Father. Mary still has a mission to fulfill, the mission of the Mother of the Church. But the time comes in which the course of her earthly life. In the faith of the Church, at the end of history the dead will rise. The power of God and of his Son have anticipated this final moment for Mary, which takes place after her death. Thus her entire person, in her body and soul, the Ark in which the Son of God dwelled for 9 months, a body never stained by sin, shares in a very special way in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and anticipates the resurrection of other Christians.
It is the glorification of the human being in its corporeity. In the Assumption of Mary, the natural perfection of the human person is accomplished and fully realized through the power of God, as death entails a separation of the essential unity of the person. Death is thus violent and "unnatural." Human nature groans with the pains of labor waiting for redemption and freedom from the slavery of corruption (cf. Rom 8: 18-25). In other words, it waits for the definitive union of its entire being. Mary’s human nature does not groan. It already enjoys this definitive union with her Son.
She is the first fruit and the guarantee, together with Christ, of the resurrection of our flesh, as we proclaim in the Creed. The term "flesh" designates man in his condition of weakness and mortality. The resurrection of the flesh means that after death there will not only be life for the immortal soul, but also our "mortal bodies" (Rom 8: 11) will have new life (CIC 990). In this extraordinary work of divine power, the protagonist in the Assumption of Mary and in the resurrection of the dead is the Holy Spirit. "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you" (Rom 8,11).
PASTOral SUGGESTIONS
The value of the body. Christianity attributes great value to the human body because it is God who created it. It is God who has assumed a human body in becoming man. It is God who through his grace has made it the temple of the Holy Trinity, and it is God who destines it to resurrection. Since Christianity values the body, it teaches us to preserve it, look after it, protect it, and love it. What Christianity rejects is the "worship of one’s body," turning the body into an idol. Unfortunately, there are people for whom "you are worth what your body is worth in their eyes." Christians look after their health, they look after their personal hygiene with simplicity and sobriety, but they do not waste or devote excessive time or money to "pamper" their body. As Christians, do we value time sufficiently so as to not want to "waste" it in worshipping our body? Have we thought about the good we could do with the money that we squander to spoil our body?
Respect for one’s body. Our corporeity is a gift of God. The body is not just flesh. It is the epiphany of the person, and it is for this reason that it also enjoys a dignity of its own and deserves respect. People who take drugs or get drunk, those who use their sexuality for pleasure, those who damage their health by smoking excessively or endanger their life by driving recklessly do not respect their body. The bodies of other persons must also be respected. Thus we should avoid violence or abuse. We should look at them with modesty, valuing people for who they are rather than according to their surface appearance. The feast of the Assumption is a hymn to the value and dignity of the human body, glorified by God in a way unknown to us in eternity. In essence, it is a song of thanksgiving to the extraordinary power of God, who in the humanity of the Blessed Virgin Mary has done something beyond our reach, which is wonderful.
Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOA.html
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Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin MARY. 15th August 2000
First: Rev 11:19-12:10; Second: 1 Cor 15:20-26; Gospel: Lk 1:39-56
THEME of the READINGS
"For the Almighty has done great things for me." With these words from the Magnificat, Mary summarizes the spirit of the texts of today’s liturgy. God has chosen Mary to fulfill his plans of salvation, "...here I am to do your will" (second reading). God has granted Mary the privilege of being his Mother, "You are to conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High" (Gospel). God has glorified Mary like no other creature, "Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (first reading). The liturgy of Mary’s Assumption sings the great wonders that God has worked in his humble servant.
DOCTrinal MESSAGE
Greatness in smallness. It must be observed that the spirit with which Mary lives her smallness is of an extraordinary magnanimity. Humility, simplicity, poverty, the feeling of destitution, powerlessness, the attitude of abandonment and trust do not affect Mary’s soul in such a way as to reduce it to wickedness, meanness or to a feeling of inferiority. Mary is great in her smallness. She is great when she recognizes that she is the Lord’s humble servant and devotes her entire life to serving him. She is great when she sings filled with joy that, "He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty," manifesting her personal experience and a sort of law regulating God’s actions with men. She is great when, knowing that she is small and needy, she frequently engages in prayer so that God may reveal to her all the mysteries of his Son, the mysteries of the Kingdom. She is great when in Cana of Galilee, aware of her powerlessness, she says to her Son, "They have no wine," and then says to the servants, "Do what he tells you." She is great when from heaven, robed with the sun and crowned with stars, she continues to devote herself to us and serve her children walking in the valley of life towards eternity. There are souls who, when faced with poverty, smallness and powerlessness become small, shrink, are shriveled up like raisins, diminish themselves psychologically and in their dealings with others. Mary is not one of these souls. Mary becomes great with smallness. She grows when faced with poverty, and is strengthened and enhanced by the power of God in the face of her powerlessness.
Smallness in greatness. Mary knows full well that her greatness is not her own, that it does not belong to her but that it is God’s, that it belongs to him. This is why, in the face of the great things that God has done for Mary in her life, she does not become vain but maintains a wise and fundamental attitude, the attitude of someone who continues to be poor and small inside. "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord... because he has looked upon the lowliness of his servant" (Gospel). Mary is a woman of a simple, yet firm and strong faith; she is a woman with deeply rooted beliefs, with a clear and transparent knowledge of herself. Thanks to this, she can continue to be small in the midst of the great things that God has done for her and of the privileges with which he has filled her beyond all other creatures. Divine motherhood, the Assumption in body and soul to heavenly glory, unprecedented privileges in history, move her with gratitude for God, but they do not make her forget about the reality of her smallness and of her belonging to the group of "anawims". She has learned very well one of her son’s paradoxical lessons: "Anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all" (Mk 10:43-44). Mary needed a lot of humility to continue being simple in the midst of the wonderful things that God did in her and through her.
PASTORal SUGGESTIONS
"The little way." This is how Theresa of Lisieux defined her spirituality. She did not consider herself worthy or capable of accomplishing great missionary works like St Francis Xavier, or great works of doctrine like St Augustine or St Thomas Aquinas. She did not feel that she had been endowed with great qualities of eloquence like St Bernardino of Siena or St Anthony of Padua. She considered herself too small and too weak to suffer martyrdom, like the Apostles Peter and Paul. But she did not become discouraged because of this. In her prayer, she asked the Lord to point out to her the way to holiness, her "little way", and God showed her the way. "In the heart of the Church I shall be love." In other words, "I cannot be a martyr, or a missionary, or a teacher of doctrine, or a woman of great eloquence, but I can love. My vocation in life is love." Most men and women on our planet, in our parish, will not be able to and won’t accomplish "great things". But nothing and no one prevents them from loving, from walking down the path of love day after day, with joy and continuity, in everything they do. This was also the way of the Blessed Virgin who now, from heaven, invites us to follow in her footsteps. This way of spiritual childhood is urgent, necessary, for the men and women of our time.
True greatness. Where does true greatness lie? St Augustine would say, "Do not look for it outside but inside yourself." Man is great if he has a great heart, if he has been made greater by God’s grace, if his entire life exudes self-giving, holiness and virtue. He is not great because he is a wealth of knowledge, but because he continues to be humble even on the pedestal of science. He is not great because he has authority and has power over millions and millions of human beings, but because he recognizes that he has received such authority and power from God so that he can place them at the service of others. He is not great because of what he does (a 180° change in history, a famous work of art, an international literary award, scientific research that affords him a Noble prize...), but because he does it with the heart of a grateful child, knowing that all this is a gift of God. True greatness is not opposed to humility, obedience or a vocation to serve others. Rather, in all of these qualities it finds its pedestal and the true base of Christian humanism. Isn’t Mary, with her Assumption into heaven, a magnificent example of true greatness? When crowned as Queen of the Universe, did Mary give up being the Lord’s servant? Mary is the most perfect synthesis of greatness in smallness and of smallness in greatness. As Christians, we have a lot to learn from her. What is preventing us from doing so? May she, with her humility and greatness, accompany us in our journey through life towards the glory of heaven.
Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOB.html
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Solemnity of the ASSUMPTION (15th August)
First: Rev 11:19a; 12:1-6a.10ab; Second: 1 Cor 15:20-26; Gospel: Lk 1:39-56
THEME of the READINGS
The concept of "relationship" may help us to establish a link between the texts of the feast of the Assumption. Mary’s relationship with God the Father is depicted in the Gospel text, "For the Almighty has done great things for me." In the first Letter to the Corinthians (first reading), we glimpse Mary’s relationship to her son, the risen Christ, "the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep." The first reading enables us to see the relationship between Mary and the Church, "a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars."
DOCTrinal MESSAGE
Mary and the Father. In the Magnificat, Mary recognizes that the Almighty has done great things for her. What are these great things? First of all, the fullness of grace with which she has been conceived and that has accompanied her throughout her earthly existence. Then, the mystery of divine motherhood, a wonderful gesture of love by the Father to Mary and to all of humankind. Finally, God made of Mary the ark of the new covenant who, carrying God in her womb, is the cause of blessing for John the Baptist and his parents. The great things that God does for Mary do not end with the birth of Jesus. God continues to act with his might in Mary’s soul and life, and the last great deed of his for Mary is precisely her Assumption, body and soul, to heavenly glory. Mary’s body and soul are possessed by grace; she is the immaculate one, in whom there is no trace of anything corruptible, because everything in her person is grace, a pure gift from God. Could God the Father leave unfinished the wonderful work of grace he created in Mary during her earthly life?
Mary and her Son, Jesus Christ. The mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and of his glorification is unimaginable without the reality of a body, like our own, which was lovingly shaped in Mary’s womb. The Word became the flesh of Mary and in Mary. The Blessed Virgin can say of Jesus, "He is the flesh of my flesh." If this most holy flesh was glorified by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, will the Son have doubts about glorifying the flesh of his Mother, the blessed flesh that was an ark and nourishment for him? The risen Christ is the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep. In the temple of Jerusalem, the feast of first-fruits announced the abundant harvest. Now, the glorious Christ foretells the glorification of all believers, a glorification which will take place "in his second coming", at the end of time. Mary is the only woman who already lives in the definitive Paschal feast, because in her blessed flesh her Son Jesus Christ accomplished the work of redemption in fullness. To a certain extent, we can say that with Jesus and through him, Mary is also the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep. It is for this reason that we can lift up our eyes to the Virgin of the Assumption with love and hope.
Mary and the Church. The woman in Revelation (first reading) symbolizes Eve, Israel and the Church. The dragon is the "old snake" that tempted Eve and caused her to be thrown out of Paradise (Gn 3). However, already in verse 15 a window of hope is opened, when the woman overcomes the snake by treading on its head. This woman in the new Eve, Mary, the woman over whom the snake has no power at all, and who is totally victorious over the snake. The woman represents the People of Israel, the woman-bride with whom Yahweh entered into a marriage covenant, the woman as beautiful as the sun, as powerful as a great queen, pregnant and expecting a child. In Mary, the vocation and hope of Israel are fulfilled perfectly. She is beautiful with the splendor of God, powerful because of her humility, pregnant because she is carrying the very Son of the Almighty. The woman also symbolizes the Church, in the splendor of her holiness, in fruitful motherhood, being persecuted by the devil, fleeing to the desert to recover her strength and preparing for the battle of victory. Mary, as daughter of the Church, has taken her holiness, fruitfulness and victory to God himself; as mother of the Church, from heaven, she helps the Church in trials and comforts it in its pain.
PASTORal SUGGESTIONS
A woman of our kind. In spite of all her greatness, Mary is not any different from all other women of this earth. She is entirely a woman, not a superior being who has come from another planet, or a supernatural creature who has come down from heaven. In the Gospel, she is presented with all the features of her femininity and motherhood in specific historical circumstances, at times darkened by pain, at others crowned by joy. She feels like a woman, she reacts like a woman, she suffers like a woman, she loves like a woman. Her greatness is not her own doing, but the wonderful work of God, which is accepted and seconded faithfully by Mary. Her Assumption to heaven, body and soul, does not estrange her from us, but makes her more powerful because she looks upon men and women, her brothers and sisters, with the eyes of love and mercy. Her glorious presence in heaven speaks to us not only of a privilege of Mary, but also of the call that God makes to everyone to participate from this very life in the fullness of our body and our soul. As a woman of our kind, she is the most sublime of all human creatures and the most tender and maternal of all. Jesus Christ and Mary, his Mother, have already gone beyond the threshold of heaven with the fullness of their being. We have not yet gone beyond that threshold; we are living in expectation and hope, but we have the certainty that the time will come in which the door will be open to all and in which we will begin to live in a new world. It is not a dream, or a mere promise. It is a reality, which we wait for with absolute trust in the power of God. The Assumption of Mary is the guarantee of our hope. Isn’t it wonderful that Mary’s glorious destiny is also our ultimate and final destiny?
Psalm to Mary’s Assumption.
Bless, my soul, the almighty God,
because he has deigned to raise to heaven the body and soul
of the humble maiden of Nazareth.
May all creatures bless the Father
For he chose a woman of our kind,
to manifest in her the victory over death and corruption,
as first-fruits of our destiny, together with Christ.
May all those redeemed bless our Lord Jesus Christ,
because in Mary, his Mother, who has been raised to heaven,
he makes shine in their splendor all the effects of redemption.
Let us bless the Holy Spirit,
who made burn in the being of Mary of Nazareth
the fire that does not consume
and the light that never goes out.
May all creatures, together with Mary, praise God.
Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOC.html by P. ANTONIO IZQUIERDO L.C. (1948-2013)
[참고: 이 파일은 저서명 "가톨릭
교회의 말씀 전례에 따른 성경공부 해설서"(엮은이:
소순태, 출판사: 가톨릭출판사)의 각주의 연장으로
마련되었습니다].