Father Chris -Assumption Of The Blessed Virgin Mary - Homily

" Mary,  Mother Of God "

I have just had a wonderful Christmas celebration with family. Now, it’s time to head back home. The weather is sunny, the roads are supposed to be clear, although we hear on the news the temperatures are far below freezing.
 
Standing in the doorway, having said goodbyes with hugs and kisses, my mother says to me: “Now, where’s your hat? You shouldn’t be going out in that cold without something on your head!”
 
“Mom, I’m in my fifties! I’m not a child! You’ve got to stop treating us like kids! We’re all adults now!”
 
“You will always be my children, no matter how old you are! So, get used to it!”  
 
It is strange what small, seemingly insignificant, yet deeply meaningful moments with our mothers and fathers are remembered with affection when they are gone. This one is particularly significant, because it reminds us our mothers in particular saw and experienced the very beginnings of our lives, the arrival in the world we can’t remember: our first breath, our first cries, our first walks and our first falls. They watched us leave the safety of home, sending us off with prayers and humble guidance and reminders to put on our hats, boots and gloves in bad weather. Always close even if distant, mothers watched our first successes, our first failures, our first loves, our first heartbreaks, and the unfolding our first dreams.
 
Luke tells us Mary treasured all these same things our mothers treasure, pondering them in her heart. She also would have realized how blessed by God she and Joseph were that their little boy lived, because records of the time say about 25% of newborns died in their first year, while 50% died in infancy from disease, malnutrition, starvation and harsh conditions. She would remember her son’s first breath and his last.   
 
Mary is important and critical to the whole foundation of the Christian faith in countless ways: with the birth of her child, Jesus, the promise of salvation was born. Just as Christ was considered the new Adam, Mary is now considered the new Eve.
 
As the Arc of the Covenant held the Word of God on two stone tablets, Mary is the New Arc of the Covenant holding the Word of God made flesh within her womb. She, in fact, becomes more than the Mother of Jesus who fulfilled his Father’s call to be our Saviour. Mary, in reality, is the Mother of God, the Mother of the actual Saviour of the World who is God himself. “My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.”
 
Jesus is the ‘human and divine’ ‘Emissary’ for God, his Father, who is the true Saviour, inviting us to relinquish sin and seek his Father’s Way of love; while Mary, though born free of original sin, is not divine, but only human. She is like us, understanding our mortal condition, and thus becomes our perfect ‘Advocate’ and ‘Intercessor’ for God and her son. She becomes the Mother of All Humankind.
 
But today, we celebrate something especially remarkable about Mary: her ‘assumption’ into heaven, or her dormition, meaning ‘death resembling sleep’.
 
It is this event which lays to rest the argument that the body is of no importance after death. Many suggest when we die our soul leaves the body, and our flesh is simply disposed of while we enter the veil in spirit form. But this is not so. Somehow, our body is transformed and remains in union with our spiritual nature.
It is a mystery we cannot understand, but a truth nonetheless.
 
A friend of mine is a Third Order Dominican who became a minister and preacher after what he witnessed in his youth. His grandfather was in hospital nearing death, and his parents were alone with him, having convinced grandma to go home and rest awhile with her grandchildren. From the basement recreation room, my friend and his siblings heard the screen door of the kitchen open upstairs. He rushed upstairs to welcome his parents, but saw from a distance his grandfather hugging grandma! He turned and shouted downstairs, “Grandpa is Ok!” But then his grandma came and said, “Well, your grandpa just came to say ‘goodbye’.” Moments later a phone call came telling them that Grandpa had just died.  
 
We are both body and soul, ‘one’ entity! Like Mary, our beloved, human, Christian Advocate, we, too, as St Paul tells us, will be changed, in the twinkling of an eye, and be raised imperishable. Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.
 
– Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario