Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Lectionary: 622

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....

There are moments when anxieties and worries and real threats feel so overwhelming, we think rejoicing might be come kind of sin. It just doesn't belong right now.

It is good to celebrate the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is good to remember the graces God gave to this young woman, graces which she kept and nurtured, in which she grew "from grace to grace" until the day she died. In which, she still grows!

On this solemn feast of Mary's assumption we remember her joy. (The word Assumption means God "assumed" her into heaven. She rose in a manner like that of Jesus' ascension.) 

Recalling now the end of her life we hear in today's gospel of an earlier moment when the woman-child arrived in Jerusalem to share astonishing news with her elderly cousin, Elizabeth. They were dancing for joy even as the sixth-month John danced in Elizabeth's womb. 

If King David could not suppress his dancing when the Ark of the Covenant arrived in Jerusalem, despite his wife's sneering contempt, we cannot deny the rightness and propriety of their songs of joy and ecstatic dance.

Both women, Elizabeth and Mary, rejoice because "he has looked with favor on his lowly servant."

These women were nobodies in their day; politically, socially, economically they did not count. Powerful men around them might consider their vulnerability but they never feared their strength. The authorities in Jerusalem and Rome couldn't be bothered with the comings and goings of poor women. Nor, for that matter, will they glance over Mary's manifesto: He shows the strength of his arm and scatters the proud in their conceit? He casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly? He fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich empty? You can almost hear their sneering, "Give me a break."

These mothers-to-be celebrate an event of cosmic significance. It is hidden for the present but future generations will call them blessed. In the interim, since that day in Jerusalem, we  have seen nations and empires, religions and corporations raised up and fallen down. And still we celebrate their joy. 

If this is a dark moment in our history we have seen worse; if this a bright moment, we have seen better. And still we confidently expect the fulfillment of "the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever."