The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven, Sunday, August 15, 2021

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.

This Feast commemorates the taking up of the Blessed Virgin, body and soul, at the end of her life on earth.  Various apocryphal accounts from the fifth and sixth centuries purport to describe this, but at the very least they tell us of the devotion of the people to her and the common belief in her being taken up to heaven.  It seems that her Assumption was first celebrated in Palestine in the fifth century, perhaps earlier.  A feast day marked the occasion in various places in Western Europe some years afterwards.

Although the Blessed Virgin’s exclamation of praise and thanksgiving to God in the Magnificat comes at the beginning of her pregnancy, during her Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, these words even better fit her entrance into heaven as its Queen.  We can think of the myriads of myriads of angels crying out with joy to her: “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled!”  And then Mary answering: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!”  Body and soul, she proclaims his greatness, her body now glorified ahead of the Resurrection of the dead by a special grant of Almighty God, who so treasured her: “For you will not give me up to Sheol, nor let your holy one see corruption” (Psalm 16, 10).  “For he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.”  The Virgin, entering heaven in glory and to the hymns of the angelic choirs, still knows herself as the lowly handmaid of the Lord, and at the same time knows how God has so greatly favored her.  “From this day all generations will call me blessed.”  And truly blessed is she on the day she entered the bliss of the beatific vision!  “The Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his Name!”  The One whose Name is holy has done great things for me: he has preserved my soul from any stain of sin, he has given me his Son to be my Son, and he has taken me to be with him in heaven.  “He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.”  From mitigating the punishment due to Adam and Eve, through preserving Noah and his family, then rescuing the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, and sending his Son to save us from the punishment we deserve because of our sins, the Lord has had mercy on those who fear him and call upon his name.  And now he takes me, who am so lowly, into Paradise.  “He has shown the strength of his arm, and has scattered the proud in their conceit.”  Those who hate Almighty God and so persecute those who love him are “scattered”, overthrown, despite their pride and apparent power.  “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.”  Satan, the worst enemy of mankind, is cast down from the heights.  He styled himself as the ruler of this world and continues to rule over sinners, but cannot harm the just.  The Virgin Mary, the lowly one, has crushed the head of this serpent with the “heel” of her obedience to Almighty God.  “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”  Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied.  The wicked, who are “rich” through their greed and lack of morality, will see that the things they prized most are worthless.  “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.”  Inasmuch as each of us who are baptized is a member of the New Israel, we can put our own names in place of Israel in this verse.  In the case of the Blessed Virgin: “He has come to the help of his handmaid Mary for he has remembered his promise of mercy.”  She was ever conscious of the fact that all that was given to her came through the mercy of God.

“Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.”  After her “three months” of life on earth — for our life here is so brief — she was brought to her true home in heaven.  We join the angels in their rejoicing, and ask for her intercession that we join her there one day.