Word to the Wise
Saturday, August 15, 2015 - Aug. 15 - The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mass during the Day
[Rev 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab; 1 Cor 15:20-27; Luke 1:39-56]"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." [Luke]
These familiar words from the "Canticle of Mary" ["Magnificat"] sum up much of Marian theology in Catholic tradition. Her life is to be interpreted in terms of her relationship to the one to whom she gave birth. "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord." The Assumption of Mary is a proclamation of the call to holiness that all Christians receive at baptism. Since Mary is regarded as the first disciple and the model of the Church, her immediate experience at death of the vision of God is the goal of all believers. In her case this meant her whole person, but we cannot know how God did this, only that it has been believed and celebrated from at least the 5th century A.D..
Catholic piety, at times, has a way of isolating Mary from her relationship to the trinitarian God whom we worship and turning her into a kind of "godess." While there were distinctions that we learned from the Baltimore Catechism about the level of devotion that is appropriate so that outsiders would not accuse us of worshiping her, our public devotional behavior has been, at times, hard to distinguish from worship! It seems to me that the best way of understanding her role in God's plan is to consider her the "proto-disciple" - the first to bear witness and to receive the disciple's ultimate goal, union with God. In that way, we join her in worship. Our imagination may allow us to understand her as mother, sister, aunt - almost any human relationship - but her faith is the important thing. She is not only the model of the Church but the model for all believers and seekers. AMEN
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