Cycle A | Solemnity | THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
REFLECTION
– By Fr Ugo Ikwuka
Archway, London
There was this story about a carpenter who was fixing a Church ceiling. As he worked, a woman came in to pray at the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To prank the woman, the carpenter whispered, “Woman, this is Jesus.” The woman ignored him. The carpenter whispered again, more audibly, “Woman, I say this is Jesus.” Again, the woman ignored him and continued with her prayers. Finally, the carpenter spoke the third time, “Woman, don’t you hear me? This is Jesus.” Now, thinking that the voice was coming from the crucifix at the altar, the woman looked up and said, “Be quiet Jesus, I’m talking to your mother.”
So, why do Catholics treasure devotions to Mary and have doctrines about her such as her Assumption which is celebrated this 15th of August? First of all, it is because Mary faced the mystery of God and said, “May it be done to me according to your word.” Then follows her greatest privilege as mother of the Saviour which presupposes this radical trust and generosity on her part. Furthermore, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church noted: “By her complete surrender to God’s will, her cooperation with his son’s redemptive work and her disposition to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity.”
On the other hand, Catholics exalt Mary because we want to tell the full story. Just as the full story of human fall in Adam cannot be told without Eve, so also the full story of our redemption in Christ cannot be told without Mary. In fact, Jesus and Mary came to reverse the roles of Adam and Eve as can be seen in the following contrasts:
- In the old order, the woman (Eve) came from the body of the man (Adam), but in the new order the man (Jesus) comes from the body of the woman (Mary).
- In the old order, the woman (Eve) first disobeyed God and led the man (Adam) to do the same, in the new order, the woman (Mary) was first to obey God when she said: “Let it be done unto me according to thy will” and she then raised her son to say exactly the same (faced with the cross, Jesus said in obedient surrender, “Let your will be done, not mine”).
- While Adam and Eve had fun together disobeying God, Jesus and Mary suffered together doing God’s will.
- In the old order, Adam and Eve shared immediately in the punishment resulting from the fall as they were driven out of paradise. In the new order, Jesus and Mary share immediately in the glory resulting from their faithful collaboration in human redemption; Christ with Ascension, Mary with Assumption which teaches that at the end of her earthly life, the she was taken up body and soul into heaven.
Assumption therefore balances Ascension and is thus the ultimate proof of the equality of man and woman before God as it crowns the faithful collaboration of man and woman in the work of our salvation. This collaboration shows that when devotion to Mary is properly made, it does not lead Christians away from Christ as some would suppose but it rather leads Christians more deeply into the mystery of Christ. We see this harmony clearly demonstrated at the Wedding Feast at Cana where Mary commands us to do whatever Jesus tells us.
On another note, Assumption underscores the sacredness of the human body which we have neglected for so long because we grow up with a spirituality that associates the body with vanity while the soul is recommended for redemption and eternity. St Paul reminds us that our body is The Temple of the Holy Spirit (1Cor. 6:19). It is not an inessential element of human beings but an integral part. Man does not have a body, he is a body. The body was created directly by God, assumed by the Word in the incarnation and sanctified by the Spirit in baptism.
Enthralled by the splendour of the human body, the Psalmist exclaims: “You formed my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for the wonder of my being” (Ps. 139). Christianity preaches the salvation of the body, not salvation from the body. Bodies disfigured by sickness and death will be ransomed. Writing to the Philippians (3:21), Paul assures: “The Lord Jesus will transfigure our miserable body, conforming it to his glorious body.”
The tragic negligence of the human body today is demonstrated in the subjection of the body to different forms of trauma and abuses, for instance, through over-eating, over-drinking, abuse of substances, the indignity of violent piercings, self-harming etc. The body is also violated through pornography, indecent exposures, illicit, perverted and distorted sexual activities. Ironically too, some supposedly body enhancing measures end up traumatising the body. Some have lost their skin to tanning or toning while others have lost body parts to enhancement surgeries.
Some starve the body to the point of becoming anorexic because they want to have beach bodies. A very skinny model once declared on the television that she lives on one apple a day to maintain her shape, and she really looked disturbing. One really hopes that we don’t appear unrecognizable on the last day. And when the body is so traumatised, it can affect the spirit. That’s why the hungry man is an angry man. Assumption teaches that we should care for our bodies as salvation is for the whole person – body and soul, and for both genders – male and female.
