“HONEY FROM THE ROCK”
Monday, 15th August 2016,
Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time
Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.Rev 11:19, 12:1-6, 10;
Ps 44:10-12, 16;
1Cor 15:20-27;
Lk 1:39-56
THE GOAL OF OUR STRUGGLE!
Today, on the Solemnity of the Assumption into Heaven of the Mother of God, we celebrate her passage from the earthly condition to heavenly blessedness. By contemplating Mary in heavenly glory, we understand that the earth is not the definitive homeland for us either, and that if we live with our gaze fixed on eternal goods we will one day share in this same glory and the earth will become more beautiful. Consequently, we must not lose our serenity and peace even amidst the thousands of daily difficulties. The luminous sign of Our Lady taken up into heaven, shines out even more brightly when sad shadows of suffering and violence seem to loom on the horizon.
The Assumption celebrates the Blessed Virgin's singular participation in her Son's Resurrection by which she was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory when the course of her life was finished. Of course, the message for us is that Mary's Assumption gives us a glimpse into what we too can expect when our own resurrection occurs on the last day. Mary's assumption is really the destiny of all those in Christ. As St Paul tells us that, we shall be raised up from the dead with a glorified body like that of Christ Himself. Through the power of Christ's resurrected glory, we'll experience complete and perfect union with God in Christ in a glorified state, just as Mary experiences it now as a result of her Assumption.
The Assumption is a day on which we are called to focus ourselves anew on our final goal and our final hope of glory. So let our other occupation and preoccupation fall into line. We need to see ourselves standing up there with Mary with the moon beneath our feet, clothed with the sun and the stars as the crown on our heads. We need to let the dragon be kept in his true perspective, and seek, each of us, through grace, and with the help of the Immaculate, to give birth, albeit with wailing pain, to Christ in our lives. Then our own resurrection, body and soul, will be assured; then our own lives will have found their final and truest context; then we will realize that the truth proclaimed in the dogma of the Assumption is actually the fulfillment of the deepest desire of our lives.
Prayer: O merciful and loving Mother, may Your glorious beauty fill our hearts with distaste for earthly things and an ardent longing for the joys of Heaven. Amen.
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