A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. (Revelation 12: 1)
A Blessed Body
There is no doubt that "the Ascension of Mary", the Assumption, is one of the best-loved Marian feasts. Yet what is the situation concerning the significance and the importance of the content of this feast? What does "bodily assumption into heaven" mean? How about the biblical basis of this event? Is it not strange that the Bible tells us nothing about it? The Gospel reading for this feast is talking about a quite different occurrence: the visit of the young, pregnant Mary to her relative Elizabeth, who is expecting a baby despite her age and is in the sixth month of her pregnancy.
There are only legendary accounts of the earthly life of Mary, nothing historically reliable. Mary is supposed to have "fallen asleep", passed away (the Christian East calls this feast "the Dormition of Mary", to this day), but the tomb was afterward found empty by the Apostles. The nugget of truth at the heart of the legend, however, is to be found in today's Gospel reading. This has to do with pregnancy and life. Two women, Mary and Elizabeth, meet. Each is carrying a baby under her heart. When they greet each other and embrace, the babies move in their wombs as if they, too, meant to greet each other.
The mystery of life! No living man has ever come into the world except by being born of a woman, his mother. In spite of all the wars, all the violence and destruction, all the power of death, this mystery of life is still stronger. That is what the faithful felt from an early stage: the body that gave life to Jesus could not simply fall victim to death.
Elizabeth was perhaps the first to have an inkling of it, when she welcomed Mary, her young relative, with the unusual greeting "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" Since then, people at prayer have reiterated this greeting countless times, whenever they pray the Hail Mary. Mary herself, in the "hymn of thanksgiving" with which she responded to Elizabeth's greeting, said, "Behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed." And all generations since then have in fact expressed their love and gratitude toward Mary. There is no nation upon earth today among which she is not honored. She is no goddess - she is fully and entirely human - but she is blessed like no other human being. For she is, as Elizabeth says in her greeting, "the mother of my Lord". She gave him earthly life, and he gave her heavenly life, for body and soul. Because she is already living with him fully, she is, constantly, fully with other people.
Reprinted from:
Jesus, The Divine Physician
Encountering Christ in the Gospel of Luke
By Christoph Cardinal Schönborn,
Archbishop of Vienna, Austria
Ignatius Press, 2008
www.ignatius.com