Praesumite Paulisper [Assume for a moment]

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
15 August, 2014

ASSUME FOR A MOMENT that Mary was not significant to the development of the Church in its earliest days; that, unlike every other person intimately connected with Jesus, she was not considered important enough to be cared about either during her remaining life or after her passing. Venture the thought that the only blood relative of Jesus, who followed him throughout his earthly ministry, was ignored by his followers after his death and given no place of honour amongst the apostles and other disciples of Christ, who claimed to be the extended, spiritual family of her son. See if you will, how the bones of the earliest apostles and martyrs have been the subject of preservation and veneration throughout the centuries; how great basilicas have been erected to house and celebrate them – but not Mary’s, because being chosen by God to give birth to the Saviour of the world is somehow less deserving of dignity and honour. Assume all of this is true – Would not Christ himself seek to give honour to his mother? Would it be so abhorrent for the God who loves all men to love the woman who bore, raised and stood by him to his death, enough to grant her the first taste of the reward that is promised to all who follow him faithfully on that day when “the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible”?

As in every event of her earthly life, Mary calls out through her glorious Assumption, ‘It is not about me!’ and urges us to ever deeper love for her Son. She always took praise – be it from the Angel Gabriel or her cousin Elizabeth – and magnified it to the glory of God, wanting to keep nothing for herself, a mere handmaid of the Lord for whom he had done great things. The Assumption is the final act of the almighty God in honouring that most precious of his creations whom he had chosen to be the vessel of his love for all mankind. It was not by her own power that she was assumed body and soul into heaven. She did not ascend into heaven like Christ, as we are sometimes accused of believing by our detractors. The Assumption was the action of God, her Son, out of the most profound love for the one who had truly loved God just as perfectly as he had loved her.

And it was not for her glory alone that Christ called his Blessed Mother to his side when her earthly sojourn had come to an end. The glory of the Virgin Mother of God is no less than the glory we are destined to receive in Christ when he will raise our mortal bodies and make them like his own in glory. So it is that our Holy Mother becomes a living testament to our own redemption through her Son and to the great power of our God, whose promise of our own participation in his eternal glory is made real through her bodily assumption to the Father’s house. For as the Virgin Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin, so too have we been washed clean through the waters of baptism. And although her sinless flesh rendered her immune to the physical corruption that death inflicts on our own mortal bodies, yet do we who cling to the grace of God through faith in Christ need but to slumber a while until the appointed time when our own frail flesh, raised by the Spirit, will rejoin our souls in his Kingdom.

To those who would say that, today, we place Mary on a pedestal too close to the divine to be acceptable, I say, if it were Christ himself who placed her there, is it not acceptable? To those who would say that we assume too much beyond the Word of God by believing in the Assumption of Mary, I say, if you are to believe the apostle when he says, “for the wages of sin is death” [Rom.6:23], and that, “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin” [Rom.5:12], then what would you have happen to the handmaid of the Lord; the one hailed “full of grace” by the angel Gabriel? Scripture prohibits that one free from sin should suffer the punishment of Adam and his progeny, to be consigned to the dust from which he was made.

To those who would say that Mary’s Assumption into heaven makes her equal to God and that we blaspheme to acknowledge it, I say, it is impossible for God to blaspheme against himself, and whatever wonders he decides to perform or dignities to bestow upon his servants – as he did as well upon Elijah and Enoch – are done that all may come to know and love him. God’s glory is not diminished by the glory of his saints, for they glory in the Lord and are but reflectors of the source, as the moon shines but only for the power of the sun. So the brightness with which Mary shines is not her own or for her glory. She, the star of the sea and the star of the east, shines for all men, that we may be led to God – “For with thee is the fountain of life: and in your light we shall see light” [Ps.36:9].

To those who would say that the Assumption is the invention of the Church in modern times and was not a belief recognised by the early Fathers, I say, that the New Testament they hold in their hands was only acknowledged as canonical at the end of the fourth century, most probably at the Synod of Hippo (393AD), in the very same decade as St. Epiphanius of Salamis wrote these words of the Mother of God: “she through whom the divine light shone upon the world is in the place of bliss with her sacred body." [Haer. lxxix, 11] While he freely admits that he cannot be certain how or even whether Mary died, he leaves in no doubt that her body is with Christ her Son. Writing later but recalling the tradition of bishop Juvenal of Jerusalem, who attended the Council of Chalcedon in 451AD, St. John of Damascus tells us: "Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem at the Council of Chalcedon made known to the Emperor Marcian and [his Empress] Pulcharia, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles and that her tomb, when opened upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to Heaven." [Homily on the Dormition, II,96]

And for all of us, who celebrate this great feast of God’s glory in the raising of the Blessed Virgin, body and soul, to his side in heaven, I pray that we may always be strong in our faith and not resort to the distortions of human logic to reason that which is of divine providence; that we may rejoice with the angels that God so loved the Theotokos, that he chose to share with her, first, that to which we are all destined through Christ: the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

Hic Nos Esse [We are here]

The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

06 August, 2014

WE ARE HERE, as was Peter, in the presence of the Lord. Peter clearly didn’t want to leave. And why would he? This was the most marvellous sight he had ever beheld and, indeed, would behold until his Lord stood in his resurrected body and ascended into heaven. For Peter, this witness “of his sovereign majesty” [2Pet.1:16] coming only a short while after his confession “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” [Mt.16:16] was a confirmation of his faith of momentous proportions. His master, the carpenter’s son, stood, not bathed in divine light but exuding it from every fibre of his being; talking with Moses and Elijah whose law and prophecy he had come to fulfil; and confirmed by the voice of God himself as his son, the Word, to whom all men are charged to listen. No, Peter didn’t want to leave that mountaintop or see the resplendent glory of his master fade. But fade it must, and, this, Peter could not understand, even now, that “the Son of man must suffer many things … and be killed, and on the third day be raised” [Lk.9:22]; that suffering must necessarily precede the illumination of his glory that he had with the Father since the beginning; and that Peter too would have to “deny himself and take up his cross” before he could climb again the mountain of the Lord and see once more the face of the God of Jacob.

It is easy for us to forget, just as Peter misunderstood, that the victory of Christ lies not on this mountaintop but on the hill of Golgotha. Just as Peter, seeing Christ’s glory there made manifest, thought it better that they remain there rather than proceed to Jerusalem, where his master would undoubtedly fall foul of the Jewish authorities, so too do we sometimes seek the refuge of Christ’s glory without first taking our share of his suffering. 

The Transfiguration was Christ’s revelation to his closest followers that although he has been granted all authority in heaven and on earth [Mt.28:18] all that was about to unfold is indeed his will, even though of his nature he should never be subjected to such scorn and debasement, torture and death. And for our part, as witnesses through the Gospels to the glory of Christ that night on the mountain, we must understand that the nature of our glory in Christ was wrought at a price; and that while each celebration of Mass is a celebration of his glory, it is also the living sacrifice of the cross – for neither can be separated one from the other. In the words of Pope St. Leo the Great:

"Thus, the Lord’s example calls on the faith of believers to understand that, no doubt against the promise of happiness, we must nevertheless, in the trials of this life, ask for patience before glory; the happiness of the kingdom can not, in fact, precede the time of suffering.” [Leo the Great, Sermon 38,4]

The Lord precedes us, his glory a lamp for our steps and a light for our path that in all things we should emulate his humility and service, his love and sacrifice, and so be led – as were Peter, James and John – up the mountain of his Transfiguration. The Psalmist asks, as should we of ourselves, “Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?”. In his answer we find the lives we should lead, “The man with clean hands and pure heart, who desires not worthless things, who has not sworn so as to deceive his neighbour.” We must endeavour to be unpolluted by the world of sin, both outwardly (in the action of our hands) and inwardly (in the desires of our hearts). We must seek not glory in worldly attachments but follow Christ in his path to glory through the cross. And we must keep our covenant with Christ, to love God and our neighbour, both, as we ourselves have been loved by God in Christ; for, “such are the men that seek him, seek the face of the God of Jacob."

And how are we to achieve any of these things but through prayer? It is St. Luke who recounts that Jesus and the disciples went first up the mountain to pray [Lk.9:28].  And it is through prayer that the soul connects to the divine in praise of his name, to understand his will, and to offer ourselves in his service in the words of Jesus on another mount, “not my will, but thine, be done.” [Lk.23:42]. Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the “primacy of prayer” in the mystery of the Transfiguration in his final Angelus address:

"Meditating on this Gospel passage, we can draw a very important teaching from it. First of all, the primacy of prayer, without which the entire commitment of ministry and charity is reduced to activism. During Lent we learn to give the proper time to the prayer, both personal and communal, which gives breath to our spiritual life. In addition, prayer is not an isolation from the world and its contradictions, as Peter would have wanted on Mount Tabor. Instead, prayer leads to a path of action. The Christian life consists in continuously scaling the mountain to meet God and then coming back down, bearing the love and strength drawn from Him, so as to serve our brothers and sisters with God’s own love.” [Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, 24 February 2013].

It is indeed good for us to be here; for us to possess the gift of faith that makes our souls cry out that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; for us to be able to pray with him to our Father in heaven, for the divine will to be done and for the coming of his kingdom; for us to be able to walk in his footprints of humility, service and suffering with the strength he constantly provides through the Holy Spirit; and for us, one day, to be able to see the radiance of his face, the glory of God, in his kingdom for ever.