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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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].

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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