Mary’s greatest joy comes from the
knowledge that the all-powerful God delights in her “nothingness”, because he
has found in her a human space and disposition where he can make himself at
home and work unhampered. In Mary, every human faculty and desire
responds with perfect harmony to the desires and expectations of the
Creator. This is dynamic sanctity, which
overturns every convention and tradition and value-system of human society. After Mary, only those will be called
“blessed” who are poor in spirit and courageous enough to allow God to be
everything in them. In Mary, God has proved that such a thing is possible, and
from now on every child born of woman will be judged by the standard that the
very human Mary has set. Mary is said to
have been “taken up into heavenly
glory”, because she made herself fully malleable in God’s
hands; and this being-taken-up by another, this “assumption”, swept up both her
body and her soul, because she had held nothing back, because she had offered
her whole being to God’s work and transforming activity. From now on, the shape of every human life
will either be Marian or it will have failed in fullness of humanity.
God wants the
whole of us, body and soul, for himself.
He created our whole being and he wants our whole being back for his own
delight and for our complete glorification. It is impossible to talk about Mary’s ultimate
transformation in glory without, at the same time, talking about the same vocation and destiny for ourselves. Mary’s Assumption opens the way for the glorification, along with her, of every member of the human race.
In isolation from us, the mystery of Mary
really makes no sense. Can you imagine a church, or a world, in which, out of
all human beings, only Mary has been saved?
Impossible! No mother can be happy without her children! In the same way that “Christ has been raised
from the dead, as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep”, so too Mary
enters into divine glory right next after Christ, even while human history
still continues; but she does so only as a trailblazing anticipation of our own
assumption into heavenly life and bliss.
First, the Son; then, the Mother; finally, “at his coming, those who
belong to Christ”, all those who have come to fullness of life in the divine
Son as a result of the earthly Mother’s obedient love; “each one in proper
order”, as St. Paul says.
Tintoretto, The Assumption of the Virgin , 1582-97, oil on canvas, Scuola di San
Rocco, Venice. Reflection by Father Simeon.