Assumption Vigil 2004 (For Assumption Day: see below)

This is a somewhat unusual celebration in the sense that our festivities intend to focus on the Assumption of our Blessed Mother into heaven–which is tomorrow’s observance–while this Mass for August 14^th is the obligatory memorial on the liturgical calendar of the renowned modern saint and martyr of charity, Maximilian Kolbe. Among other aspects of this peculiarity is the fact that this does not fulfill your Sunday Mass obligation: you’ll need to return to church for Mass, either this evening or tomorrow.

But we need not fear that this feastday of Saint Maximilian will detract from our Marian devotion. Perhaps there is no other saint of modern times who so penetrated the depth of understanding both of the unique person of Holy Mary and her unmatched role–next to and subordinate to Christ–in the salvation of the world. Concerning her unique person, the Saint came to realize that the Blessed Mother is not merely the greatest of saints, the only one free from original sin from her very beginning and full of God’s grace, but that her Immaculateness is a clue to a singular relationship she enjoys with the most Blessed Trinity, as a reflection–we might say–of the Person of the Holy Spirit. Saint Maximilian’s ordinary way of referring to her was to call her the ‘Immaculata,’ a name singled out from among her other titles indicating her singular purity as a mirror of God’s utter purity. Once we have come to know her as she is, once we have understood her as God created her, we begin to comprehend with a kind of naturalness all those other extraordinary things that we Catholics insist are native to her and to her alone–among which is her glorious Assumption into heaven, that special anticipation of bodily glory that is the hope of every Christian.

There is a great depth to Saint Maximilian’s Marian doctrine concerning the identity of Holy Mary that can’t be easily, or even appropriately, presented in a sermon. But there is another aspect of his teaching about her that applies more readily to everyone and is easily grasped. As you may know, the favorite sacramental promoted by this saint was that of the so-called Miraculous Medal (correctly named the Medal of the Immaculate Conception). Its popular title as a ‘miraculous’ medal could be mistaken as indicating something magical or superstitious. And, indeed, Catholics frequently have had to defend their religious practices–so easily misunderstood–from such charges. But the medal, properly understood and used, is both a sign of belonging to Mary as to one’s spiritual Mother, and an instrument whereby she brings about the conversion of many to the true Catholic faith. To put it in short form, this sacramental is a badge identifying one’s total belonging to the Mother of Christ and a kind of spiritual weapon (Kolbe called it a ‘bullet’ destroying evil). Belonging to the Blessed Mother in the program of Father Kolbe meant that one was so united in spirit with her that he became a ‘knight’ in her service, helping bring all people to Christ. This is the providential role of Mary both as our Mother and our Queen. The miraculous medal bears the well-known inscription: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” Having “recourse” to Mary means having unbounded confidence, trust, in her powerful mediation in bringing souls to God.

This all-important spiritual plan of the Blessed Mother–to have all men accept the grace of Christ for their salvation–is facilitated and augmented by the freely embraced act of consecration to her. Consecration to the Mother of God has taken various forms; and some prominent saints have composed formulas by which individuals have pledged themselves to Mary fully and generously so that they might belong to God safely, quickly and permanently. In recent times, these acts of consecration to the Blessed Mother have often taken on a public character and have even been directed by the Holy Father himself. This public character indicates that Mary is not only for the personal advantage of individual Christians, but that she has a sweeping plan that embraces all people of the world.

At this Mass I ask you to join me in making just such a public act of consecration to Holy Mary. Uniting with me in mind and sentiment, you will, in effect, be asking our beloved spiritual Mother to take us and mold us according to the will of God for our own salvation and for the salvation of all the world. If there is an intention more worthy of your prayers, I can’t think of it. If there’s a greater means of brining it about than this, I don’t know of it. We bring to God today, through our consecration to Mary, not so much the externals of religious piety as the intention of our resolute wills to have Jesus reign supreme in every soul: that all be converted to God and be found in a state of grace. May God grant this most noble intention, the one that was foremost in the mind of our Redeemer and which remains so dear to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

(Kneel at high altar and say the prayer.)

Assumption Day 2004

Belief in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven is a doctrine that is not held by all Christians. Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox Churches have believed it for centuries. When the Protestant reformation swept through the western world, it uprooted many long-held and cherished beliefs that were part and parcel of the Christian faith. The rationale for this revisionism and what would become religious nominalism was the rule of ‘the bible alone’ (sola scriptura) by which any belief not found explicitly mentioned in the scriptures was expunged from the creed. Thus, not only the Assumption, but much else of Christian tradition was excised from the new Protestant movement and Christianity was henceforth radically and severely divided over many essential points of belief. Most all of what had been the cherished patrimony of the Church concerning the Holy Mother of God was abandoned.

What the Catholic Church asserts about the Assumption in body and soul of the Blessed Mother is in fact most consonant with sacred Scripture, even though the event is not recorded there. This concord of Catholic belief in the Assumption with the bible is due to the obvious fact that Holy Mary is no ordinary Christian. Who would dare deny the evident dignity of the sole human person who was appointed to become the Mother of God in the flesh? Once that astounding and incontestable fact has been fully digested, the logical consequences from it ought not to be surprising. Her immaculate conception, for example, is perfectly consonant with the dignity of her divine maternity. Her unique advantage in having an edge in interceding for others with her Son is biblically documented, although one would have presumed it in any case on the basis of maternal authority from general human experience. And, the mystery celebrated today–of her Assumption–is also harmonious with what should be reckoned as appropriate for God’s Mother. I must explain.

The close of the earthly career of our Lord was His ascension into heaven, a marvelous event attended by several eye-witnesses and recorded in the New Testament. What then was to become of the end of the earthly life of the mother of our Lord? Was she, who was the closest person ever to God, who gave God a body in fact, not to have her own body in heaven, but to have it corrupt in the grave as all others who, unlike her, had inherited original sin and its punishments? The dogma of the Assumption of Mary ought not to appear so very exceptional when viewed in the whole context of Christian belief, since all true Christians believe that on the last day of this earth there is going to be a resurrection of everyone’s body: some going ‘up’ by assumption into heaven, and some going ‘down’ by submersion into hell. (Our Lord specifically mentions these two kinds of bodily resurrection in the Gospel of Saint John: those who will have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life; those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. John 5:29). There is nothing so surprising then that our Lord would have provided that His own Mother’s assumption should be the very next in order after the “first fruits” (1 Cor 15:23) of Christ’s own resurrection and ascension. The appropriateness of Mary’s Assumption can’t be denied either from reasoning about it, nor from a thoughtful deduction made from the New Testament.

The real difficulty in this teaching is to accept the consequences of the doctrine. If indeed the body and soul of the Virgin Mary was taken up into heaven on account of her most holy and privileged life, it means at least two things: if God so elevated her, so must I in my spiritual life. Mary must be held very high by all who believe in Jesus Christ. The second point is more demanding. Being assumed into heaven for us is conditional. If–and only if–we do good deeds in our own bodily life on earth will we come to enter heaven with our bodies someday. Heaven then has a price. Mary paid it, merited it, with her sinless life, her consistent and most persistent obedience to God’s commandments. If we do wicked deeds in the body–and the sins of the flesh are most pertinent here–then we ought not expect to go to heaven. Simply put, we hope to obtain heaven both from the goodness of Christ and from the merit of the good things we had done on earth.

Here is our feastday in its doctrinal richness: testifying to the holiness and utter goodness of the Blessed Mother and a summoning of all our powers to an imitation of her virtues. The hope of all of us is stirred to want to join Jesus and Mary with our own bodies in the glory of heaven. But for us, we must yet await the time of the “resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”