Perhaps it should be remembered that in the middle of this month there is no celebration “San Ferragosto” but the solemnity of the assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven

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Homiletics of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

PERHAPS IT IS APPROPRIATE TO REMEMBER THAT IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS MONTH WE ARE NOT CELEBRATING "SAINT AUGUST" BUT THE SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY INTO HEAVEN

In the first centuries, indeed, as the divinity of Jesus ceased to be questioned by heretics, the Church dealt with the opposite problem: affirm the truth of his Incarnation. It is in this context that the figure of Mary became crucial and important, because her availability tied her inextricably to her son, to the Son of God who became flesh, in her flesh.

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After Benedict XVI so refined in his manner and measured in his words, more than one was surprised by some of the sentences, especially those uttered in one go by the Supreme Pontiff Francis, his successor. Which as well, it must be said, they are best remembered by simple people who probably don't remember even one of their predecessors. Among these there is one that he has repeated several times and on which I imagine there is everyone's consensus, that is, that we are experiencing a "piecemeal third world war"[1]. One of these "pieces", the conflict in Ukraine, concerns us more closely since it has been causing destruction and deaths every day for some time and for the fact that from the point of view of the relationship between the Churches it has caused estrangements, divisions and discord which will require years and years of healing.

For this reason it is so significant that the Feast of the Assumption[2] as the Catholic Church calls it or of the Dormition as it is defined in the Eastern Churches is celebrated liturgically by all these communities on the same day of 15 of August. For the entire month the Eastern Church sings of joy in the liturgy:

«In your motherhood you remained a virgin, in your dormancy you have not abandoned the world, O Mother of God. You have been transferred to life, you who are the Mother of Life and redeem our souls from death with your intercession"[3].

The belief that Mary's body, the Virgin mother, has not suffered the corruption of the tomb dates back to the first Judeo-Christian communities. The oldest nucleus (2nd-3rd century) of the apocryphal saying Dormition of Mary in fact it already contains the narrative, imaginative in terms of the story but univocal in terms of content, of Mary's transportation to heaven. And Jerusalem, it is known, there was an unbroken tradition regarding the place of burial (or of temporary deposition) of the body of the Virgin in that tomb of Gethsemane on which, towards the end of the 4th century, Emperor Theodosius I had a church built. Precisely from the celebration that the 15 August was held in this ancient center of Marian worship, the date of the feast of the Dormition of Mary was resumed and extended to the entire Christian East in the 4th century[4].

Both Western texts, by Gregory of Tours (538 ca.- 594) to Pius XII who adopted the terminological precision required for a dogmatic pronouncement, than the ancient works of the Fathers of the Church, over all those of Giovanni Damasceno (676 ca.- 749) with his repeated "it was convenient"[5], they explain the faith content of this Marian celebration and refer to the theme of life. An incorruptible life of which the Theotòkos it is a privileged image and hence the symbolism of light that pervades both artistic representations in the West (from Titian to Tintoretto and Guido Reni), than Byzantine iconographic images; both the plot of the liturgical texts, that the prayers of invocation in the east, like this very old one that reads:

«Maria, please, Mary light and mother of light, Mary life and mother of the apostles, Mary golden lamp who carries the true lamp, Mary our queen, plead with your Son"[6] .

Naturally beyond tradition which dates back to the time of the United Churches is the Holy Scripture, and the Gospel stories in particular, the source from which to draw the reason for so much attention given to Mary, the Mother of the Lord. If today we celebrate Mary's transit to God it is because she herself recited God's passage into her existence, as expressed in today's Gospel passage [cf.. LC 1, 39-56]. In response to Elisabetta's greeting, Maria pronounces the words of Magnificat, which distract attention from her and make her turn totally to the Lord. She didn't do anything, but the Lord did everything: this is the basic meaning of the Magnificat. This hymn, indeed, celebrates the God who did everything in Mary because Mary's story has God as its subject. And God's action in Mary is defined by her as a look: «The Lord looked at the littleness of his servant» [LC 1,48]. This divine gaze rested on her from the preparatory moment, transforming it through grace[7], so that she would become the Mother of the incarnate Word and will accompany him throughout his life, right up to the cross where she will receive the new motherhood over the nascent Church and beyond.

A beyond that Maria already glimpses in the passage of Magnificat when he lists the works of God that unfold from generation to generation in favor of the humble and the hungry, while the powerful, the rich and proud already satisfied will be adjusted unlike the little ones who will be raised while the powerful, the rich and proud already satisfied will be devalued. A drama that, as Jesus will teach when announcing the Kingdom of God does not happen in heaven, but here: it's history, it is life in the world, lived in the flesh that is born and that one day will die. In this story, Mary becomes a protagonist from the moment of the call, she will be the friend and model of those who want to follow an authentic journey of faith.

Maybe that's why only the Virgin Mary and no other characters, in the west, it has had so many artistic representations that depict it close to the daily experience of men and women. When it was painted with the clothes of a particular historical period, on backgrounds that reproduced the life of that time, under architectures of a specific era, in the most disparate contexts. From Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks, to the sumptuous Madonna by Piero della Francesca, from the common Maria, even one prostitute drowned in the Tiber who inspired Michelangelo Merisi known as Caravaggio, to follow with the Virgin with her arms wide open of the many Neapolitan mysteries, under a ruined Roman temple. Mary was able to take on the role of the woman of every period because she, more than anyone, was the protagonist of the great mystery of the incarnation in which

«the mystery of man finds true light. Adamo, indeed, the first man, he was a figure of the future [cf.. RM 5, 14], that is, of Christ the Lord. Christ, who is the new Adam, precisely revealing the mystery of the Father and his Love, it also fully reveals man to man and makes known to him his very high vocation... Since in him human nature was assumed, without being destroyed thereby, for this very reason it has also been raised to a sublime dignity for our benefit. With his incarnation, indeed, the very Son of God he united in a certain way with every man. He worked with human hands, he thought with the mind of a man, he acted with the will of man, he loved with the heart of a man. Born of the Virgin Mary, He truly made himself one of us, similar to us in everything except sin"[8] [The joy and hope].

In the first centuries, indeed, as the divinity of Jesus ceased to be questioned by heretics, the Church dealt with the opposite problem: affirm the truth of his Incarnation. It is in this context that the figure of Mary became crucial and important, because her availability tied her inextricably to her son, to the Son of God who became flesh, in her flesh. "And the Word became flesh" says the Gospel according to John [GV 1, 14] and Paul echoes him in the letter to the Galatians: «But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons" [Gal 4, 4-5].

That's why in churches almost immediately it began to be said that the flesh of Mary, after having given life to the Son of God, could not suffer the affront of corruption. And if he couldn't, its natural location was with the Son where from there it could become a "lively fountain of hope"[9].

"No, you are not just like Elijah 'ascending towards heaven', you were not like Paolo, transported to the 'third heaven', but you have reached the royal throne of your Son, in direct vision, in joy, and stand next to Him with great and unspeakable security... Blessing for the world, sanctification for the whole universe; relief in punishment, consolation in tears, healing in illness, port in the storm. For sinners forgiveness, benevolent encouragement for the afflicted, for all those who call upon you for always ready help"[10] (Saint John Damascene).

This is Mary's path which anticipates that of every child adopted in the Son as Paul said in the words quoted above.

There are two icons of the Byzantine tradition which tell us a lot about today's celebration. The first is that of the meeting between Maria and her cousin Elisabetta, which is the episode that preludes the Magnificat reported in the Gospel of this solemnity. In some of these icons the two women, the barren and the virgin, they hug each other tightly and their faces touch almost as if the eye of one borders on that of the other. This is a true fraternal meeting that we need so much in this time of conflict and division. That embrace and that fusion of looks between the two women reveals the exchange of the gift that each has received, it is a new Pentecost in which each recognizes the other in their peculiarity, in his calling without rivalry or jealousy.

The other icon is that of the Dormition of Mary that radiates great hope and peace. I always thought it would be cool, for instance, place it in the church during the celebration of Christian funerals. Because in these times of hospitalized and privatized death, watching a scene where we see that at the moment of passing away we are not alone is of great consolation. The Virgin was painted lying down with her cloak reminiscent of the nativity. Pietro is at the head of the bed and Paolo at the foot, while John places his head on the pillow as he had placed it on Jesus' chest. All the apostles are bent over her as well as some bishops of the primitive Church and the Christian people: no one is missing. In ancient times the dead descended to the lower regions or were ferried to them. However, they entered a dark condition, shady. If we look at the icon we can see that the whole thing is a boat, a hull that does not go to dark regions, but towards the light.

All the gazes of those present converge downwards towards Mary's body stretched out horizontally to signify human nature. Now we would expect, as the dogma says, that Mary ascended to heaven. Instead here it is the sky that descends and on the horizontal line of the Virgin the figure of Christ who occupies the scene appears in a vertical and central line, on whose face we read the strength and determination of the Risen One, of the one who has conquered death and holds a little girl in his hand. While the horizontal figure represents human nature lying on a mantle, the little girl would be the soul of Mary. A meeting, so, between visible and invisible. The horizontal space of sleep/death is intercepted by a vertical of light to form a cross.

The point where the planks of the cross meet it is the life and light brought by the figure of Christ. Even the rays surrounding him indicate the rising movement of the Son who came to take his Mother. With an atypical twist of the body to the right, towards his mother's head, the Risen One takes her soul in his arms and supports it since it is he who makes the transition from this life to the next.

But the beautiful thing is that Jesus holds his mother's soul in his arms with the same tenderness with which she held him as a child. The gestures that the Mother made to her Son, the Son now remembers them and rescues them from death. We saw the Mother holding her Son in her arms, now the situation is reversed and it is the Son who carries Mary in his arms. Only love makes things eternal. The risen Christ bears the marks of the nails to indicate that it is truly him, assumed by the love of the Father he could not remain at the mercy of the tomb. Thus Mary's body which, due to motherhood, was entirely at the service of love, cannot be left at the mercy of putrefaction.. This Feast of the Assumption is a Feast of Love and only lovers can understand it because they know that every gesture of love will be remembered forever..

Happy Assumption Day to everyone.

from the Hermitage, 15 August 2023

 

NOTE

[1] World war to pieces, see in The Osservatore Romano.

[2] The Dogma in the West was promulgated by Pius XII with the constitution the generous the 1 November 1950.

[3] Troparion t.1 of the great Vespers of the feast of the Dormition.

[4] Bagatti B., At the origins of the Church, LEV, Rome, 1981, p.75.

[5] Saint John Damascene, In Dormition, I, PG 96:«It was fitting that she who had preserved her virginity intact during childbirth should preserve her body intact from corruption after death. It was fitting that she who had carried the Creator made child in her womb should dwell in the divine abode. It was fitting that the Bride of God should enter the heavenly home. It was fitting that she who had seen her own son on the Cross, receiving into her body the pain that she had been spared in childbirth, contemplated him sitting at the right hand of the Father. It was fitting that the Mother of God should possess what was due to her because of her son and that she should be honored by all creatures as the Mother and slave of God.".

[6] Bagatti B., The apocryphal early church, Rome, 1981, pg 75

[7] from La Potterie I., Keharitomeni en Lc 1,28 Exegetical and theological study, Biblical, Vol. 68, No. 4 (1987), p. 377.382

[8] The joy and hope n. 22; S. John Paul II, The Redeemer of Man, no 8.

[9] Dante, Paradiso, Canto 33, 12

[10] on. cit PL 96, 717 AB.

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San Giovanni all'Orfento. Abruzzo, Mount Maiella, it was a hermitage inhabited by Pietro da Morrone, called in 1294 to the Chair of Peter on which he ascended with the name of Celestine V (29 August – 13 December 1294).

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With her assumption into heaven, the Virgin Mary is configured to the mystery of the risen Christ

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L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics of the Fathers of the Isle of Patmos

WITH HER ASSUMPTION INTO HEAVEN THE VIRGIN MARY IS CONFIGURED TO THE MYSTERY OF THE RISEN CHRIST

The Assumption is «a celebration that offers the Church and humanity the image and consoling document of the fulfillment of final hope: that such full glorification is the destiny of those who Christ has made brothers, having in common with them the blood and the flesh"

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Author
Simone Pifizzi

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The 15 August, in the heart of summer, while most people flock to holiday resorts for holidays, the Church celebrates one of the most beautiful and significant Marian solemnities. This is how the Holy Pontiff Paul VI spoke about it:

«The solemnity of 15 August celebrates the glorious Assumption of Mary into heaven; And, this, the celebration of his destiny of fullness and bliss, of the glorification of her immaculate soul and her virginal body, of his perfect configuration with the risen Christ; a celebration that offers the Church and humanity the image and consoling document of the fulfillment of final hope: that such full glorification is the destiny of those who Christ has made brothers, having blood and flesh in common with them (cf.. EB 2,14; Gal 4,4)». [Saint Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Marial Worship, 2 February 1974, n. 6].

Cardinal Silvano Piovanelli, Archbishop of Florence, oil painting on canvas by V. Stankho (2011)

The Venerable Pontiff Pius XII, in the Apostolic Constitution the generous (1950) writes:

«The holy fathers and the great doctors in homilies and speeches, addressed to the people on the occasion of today's celebration, they spoke of the Assumption of the Mother of God as a doctrine already alive in the conscience of the faithful and already professed by them; they explained its meaning extensively; they specified and explored its content in greater depth, they showed the great theological reasons for it. They particularly highlighted that the object of the celebration was not only the fact that the mortal remains of the Blessed Virgin Mary had been preserved from corruption, but also his triumph over death and his heavenly glorification, for the mother to copy the model, that is, he imitated his only Son, Christ Jesus […] All these considerations and motivations of the holy fathers, as well as those of theologians on the same topic, have Sacred Scripture as their ultimate foundation. Indeed, the Bible presents us with the holy Mother of God closely united with her divine Son and always in solidarity with him and sharing his condition".

This ancient liturgical testimony it was made explicit and solemnly proclaimed a dogma of faith by Pius XII on 1 November 1950. Followed by the Second Vatican Council, in the Constitution on the Church, this doctrine was reconfirmed by saying:

«The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from any stain of original guilt, the course of his earthly life ended, she was assumed to celestial glory with her body and her soul, and exalted by the Lord as the Queen of the universe, so that she would be more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of the dominants, the conqueror of sin and death" (n. 59).

Il filosofo danese Søren Kierkegaard, more than a century and a half ago, took a merciless snapshot of what our society seems to have become: a large cruise ship whose passengers have forgotten the destination of their journey and do not even care about the route announcements given by the captain, but they are much more occupied with the information on the menu of the day provided with pedantic insistence by the chef on board.

In light of many socio-cultural investigations, our society looks exactly like this: crushed on the present, forgetful of eternity and with increasingly narrow horizons. We have eliminated adjectives like “lasting” from our vocabulary, “permanente”, "definitive". He had seen the philosopher for a long time when he said: «the thing that the present time needs most is the eternal». The feast of the Assumption then becomes - in this sense - a breath of fresh air that is offered to us by the Eternal to detoxify us from the narcotics of the ephemeral, of the provisional, of the "hit and run" and makes us breathe the pure air for which our heart is made: the air of heaven.

In the preface of this Marian feast please like this:

«Today the Virgin Mary, mother of Christ and our Mother is assumed into the glory of heaven".

What did this event mean for Maria? The first reading – taken from the book of the Apocalypse – presents us with a "woman clothed with the sun" who gives birth to a child. An "enormous red dragon" attacks her and is ready to devour the newborn child with ferocity and voracity.; but this one is caught up into heaven, while the woman finds shelter in the desert and thus "the salvation of our God and the power of his Christ" is fulfilled. In apocalyptic symbolism, the woman represents the Church, the people of God who generates Christ, definitively ascended to the glory of heaven with the Resurrection. Against Christ, the dragon - the "ancient serpent" - unleashes its most ferocious and sadistic violence, but he fails in his evil intent; then he must fall back to earth to pursue the Church and her children, but not even this attempt will succeed. Even if in this text there is no direct mention of Mary, the liturgy offers us this passage to describe the Mother of God, in which the Church recognizes its highest image, the most splendid and precious jewel.

The Gospel of the Solemnity of the Assumption introduces us to Mary - pregnant by the Holy Spirit of the Son of God - who goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, also miraculously fruitful. In this evangelical page we are given - beyond the Magnificat - the true reason for Mary's greatness and her bliss, that is, his faith. Elizabeth greets her with the most beautiful and most significant praise that has been addressed to Mary and which could - more faithfully - be translated as follows:: «Blessed is she who believed: what she was told, it will be accomplished".

Faith is the heart of Mary's life. It is not the candid illusion of a naive do-goodism that thinks of life as a ship gliding peacefully towards the port of happiness. Maria knows that the brutality of bullies weighs heavily on history, the brazen arrogance of the rich, the unbridled arrogance of the proud. For believers, salvation does not happen without the experience of struggle and persecution. But God - Mary believes it and sings it - does not leave his children alone, but he helps them with merciful concern, overturning the criteria of history written by men («he has overthrown the mighty from their thrones… he has scattered the proud… he has sent the rich away empty-handed»).

The Magnificat allows us to glimpse the full meaning of Mary's story: if God's mercy is the true engine of history, if it is the love of God that forever envelops all humanity, then "she who gave birth to the Lord of life could not have known the corruption of the tomb" (Preface). A woman like Maria couldn't have ended up under a pile of earth, conceiving the humanity of the Son of God, she had the sky incorporated in her womb. But all this doesn't just concern Maria. The "great things" done on her touch us deeply and irreversibly; they speak to our life and remind our short and distracted memory of the destination that awaits us: the Father's house.

Looking at Mary and by comparing our lives in its light we understand that we on this earth are not vagabonds, with many worries, with some moments of rare and unusual pleasure, struggling with the bitter taste of pain; and we are not even the playful sailors of a cruise ship that an adverse fate tries to ruin in every way and which in the end is interrupted with an irreparable and fatal shipwreck. Like Maria's, our life is a pilgrimage, certainly uncertain and tiring and sometimes even painful and painful... a "valley of tears". Yup, but constantly accompanied by the Lord Jesus who walks with us "every day until the end of the world". It is a pilgrimage that has a certain destination, the encounter with that Father who will wipe away the tears of his children so that there will be no more crying, nor mourning, I'm not sorry, nor pain.

God the Father makes it shine "for his people", pilgrim on earth, a sign of consolation of sure hope" (Preface); a sign that has the face of Mary, the fully blessed because she believed in the fulfillment of the words of the Lord.

«Love was rekindled in her womb» recites the beginning of the XXXIII canto of Dante's Paradise which opens with the Praise of Saint Bernard to the Virgin Mary, placed at the head of those who have been regenerated by the same love and will ultimately receive life in Christ, after he has annihilated the last enemy, the death (cf.. II reading).

We are therefore not destined to suffer all our lives to end up finding ourselves perhaps with a large bank account, a luxury car, a beautiful house but with the prospect of going to rot in the few cubic centimeters of a cold grave in the cemetery, We are destined to share Mary's glory, because we too - by grace - are similar to her: children with heaven embedded in our spiritual DNA. So we turn to her because, as our earthly pilgrimage unfolds, turn your merciful eyes on us, risk the road, you remind us of the goal and show us, after this exile, Jesus the blessed fruit of her womb.

For a movement of the heart and for a dutiful need, poignant and grateful memory, I would like to conclude this meditation with the words of the Bishop who ordained me as a priest, Cardinal Silvano Piovanelli, authentic lover of the Madonna. The Cardinal concluded all his splendid homilies with a Marian reference which for us, then young seminarians serving at the Cathedral, it was the sign that the homily was about to end and we had to prepare for the offertory! Thus the Cardinal addressed the faithful in the Cathedral on 15 august of 1995:

«The words of your song, Seas, rang before Elizabeth on the mountain of Judah. Today they resonate in this Cathedral consecrated to you, in the countless churches dedicated to your name and wherever the Christian community gathers. They resonate above all in that intimate sanctuary which is the heart of many women and men and in the profound conscience of the poor and defeated peoples who preserve hope at all costs. You, Maria, you have sung a song that grows throughout the story, because it is the song of redeemed humanity. We want to sing it with you. (…) The song to the Gospel proclaims: “Mary is taken up into heaven; the hosts of angels rejoice". If the angels rejoice, we have reason to rejoice more; they honor her as Queen, we venerate her as Mother; they look at her as She who has joined them in glory, us as She who calls us to join her in joy, eager as she is to complete the task that God entrusted to her from the top of the cross. Let us all rejoice in the Lord. Amen».

Florence, 15 August 2023

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