The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15, 2020

Luke 1:39–56

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”  And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, and has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.”  Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

We celebrate today the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heaven.  Although not revealed in Scripture, belief in her Assumption is attested to in accounts handed down by the early Church.  The general gist of these is that at the end of her life on earth the Holy Spirit gathered the Apostles from the parts of the world in which they were preaching and brought them to her bedside.  After speaking to them of her desire to be reunited with her Son and assuring them of her prayers, she died and shortly thereafter was interred in a stone tomb.  Three days afterwards the Apostles opened her tomb to find her body gone.  Because these accounts speak of the “death” of Mary, the Greeks call their celebration of her entrance into heaven “the Dormition”, that is, the “sleeping” of Mary.  In the West, it was popularly believed that the Blessed Virgin did not die but that she was taken up into heaven while still alive, much as our Savior ascended into heaven after his Resurrection.  The oldest surviving evidences of the feast commemorating this event say that it was kept in August by monks in Palestine and in Egypt around the year 500, and from those places it spread into the West.  The doctrine of the Assumption continued to be taught through the ages and was formally defined by infallible decree by Pius XII in 195o.  The decree left open the question of whether the Blessed Virgin suffered physical death or not, but in the end what matters is that God took her to himself, body and soul, at the end of her life on earth.

This wondrous event is much celebrated in art.  One of the greatest paintings in human history is that of Titian’s “Assumption”.  A close study of the Virgin’s face as she is transported to heaven, surrounded by angels, powerfully reveals the awe and unworthiness that she must have felt, while, beneath her, the Apostles shrink back, marveling at the sight, St. John alone reaching his arms to her in his longing to be with her.  The Virgin herself is a wonderfully natural looking woman dressed in lush red and blue against a glowing gold field of light which grows a fuller hue as she nears the Father.  Her arms are extended upwards and bent at the elbows, as though she were praying, preparing to embrace, and yet gently protesting, all at the same time.  She is presented in a flowing red dress and swirling full length blue cape, but without a crown or even a halo, traditional elements representing sanctity.  The simplicity of her appearance allows for her to be seen as she saw herself, a mere handmaiden. 

The core of the Gospel reading for this solemnity consists of the Virgin’s outburst of praise to Almighty God in thanksgiving for his choosing her to be the Mother of his Son.  In Latin, the first word of her praise is Magnificat, literally, “it magnifies”, as in, “My soul magnifies the Lord: my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”  Thus, her prayer is known as the Magnificat.  From at least the sixth century it has been prayed daily at Vespers as a culmination of the praise offered at that office.  Settings exist for it in Gregorian chant, and it has been set to music by the greatest composers, including Palestrina, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, and Rachmaninoff.  Each of these compositions is magnificent and even majestic, and they are often performed.  I find that of these, the Palestrina most movingly evokes the mystery of the Assumption, while the Bach, with its abundant brass, is a celebration of the Virgin’s glory.

At the heart of the Magnificat is the theme of reversal, that God in his mercy casts down the rich and raises up the poor, that he humbles the proud and gives pride of place to the humble.  In all of this, we see Mary’s faith in God and in his promises.  She herself, a young peasant girl in a small town, is lifted up by God to hold within her chaste womb his only Son.  Nowhere in her prayer does she extol her own virtues, and only speaks of herself as being blessed by all generations to come in order to emphasize how unheard of, unprecedented, it is that God has sent his Son among us.

On the occasion of this Solemnity let us meditate on the stupendous act the Lord has performed in raising up the Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heaven, and to pray that through her intercession, by the grace of God, we may join her there.

The following is my literal translation from the Latin of the traditional hymn for Lauds for this Solemnity:

Solis, O Virgo, Radiis Amicta

O Virgin, clothed with the rays of the sun,

Your head encircled with twelve stars,

To whom the moon presents herself as a footstool for your feet,

O glorious one, shine forth!

O you, conquerer of dreadful death and of hell,

Enthroned near Christ, zealous for us,

Earth and the heavenly vault celebrate you

As their power-wielding Queen.

But the frightful serpent still threatens 

the lost children entrusted  to you,

Merciful Mother, be present here,

Crush the head of the evil one.

Guard the followers of the blessed Faith,

Gather the the fallen from all places to the holy flock,

Which people the shadow of death 

Has touched a long-lasting time.

O mild one, pray for the forgiveness of the guilty,

Help the weeping, the poor, and the sick,

The bright hope of all through the sharpness of life,

Make certain our salvation.

Praise be to the ever highest Trinity,

Who, O Virgin, granted you a crown,

And set you as our Queen,

And in his providence, as our Mother!