Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Osmond Anike

Readings:

First Reading: : Apocalypse 11:19, 12:1-6, 10 – A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman adorned with the sun.

Responsorial Psalm: PsPsalm 44(45):10-12, 16 – On your right stands the queen, in garments of gold.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:20-26 – Christ will be brought to life as the first-fruits and then those who belong to him.

Gospel: :Luke 1:39-56 – The Almighty has done great things for me.

The word “assumption” comes from the Latin verb “assumere” meaning, “to take to oneself” (not to be confused with ‘praesumere’ which means “to suppose to be true without proof”). ‘Assumere’ indicates that our Lord Jesus Christ took Mary home to himself where he is. The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of the oldest holy days in the church. But although it dates back to the sixth century, it was only on November 1, 1950, that Pope Pius XII, exercising papal infallibility, in an Apostolic Constitution known as the Munificentissimus Deus (“Most Generous God”) declared it as a dogma of the Church by stating “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory”. The wordings of this dogma leaves open the theological question of whether Mary died or not. By choosing the phrase, “having completed the course of her earthly life”, the pope indicated that whichever theological camp one may belong, what is certain is that Mary definitely completed the course of her earthly life, whether that came about through physical death or by direct ascension. It was after she completed the course of her earthly life that Mary was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

This dogma is based on an earlier dogma of the Immaculate Conception which holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was free from Original Sin from the very moment of her conception. It was Pope Pius IX who, on December 8, 1854, defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the papal bull entitled, Ineffabilis Deus (“Ineffable God”) when he declared that, “the most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by the singular grace and privilege of almighty God and in view of the merits of Christ Jesus the Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.” The logic here is that the cause of corruption or decay is impurity. But because Mary was preserved of the stain of the Original sin in view of what she was to become, namely, theotokos (mother of God), she was pure and hence did not experience decay but was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. She didn’t have to undergo the transformative process in which our corruptible bodies will transform to incorruptibility when the dead shall be raised on the last day. Having been preserved from any stain of sin, her body was already incorruptible and only needed the expiration of her earthly life before being assumed into the heavenly realm. It is important to note that although no mention of Mary’s assumption was made in the scripture, there are at least two cases of assumptions recorded in the scripture: those of Enoch (Gen. 5: 24) and, Elijah (2 Kgs 2:1).  These references support the possibility of Mary’s Assumption. If these people could be taken up, body and soul, to heaven because of their closeness to God, it is not out of place that Mary, who is the mother of God, and who was closer to his son Jesus more than any other person, was taken up body and soul to heaven. The fact also that there was no traces of her remains in any tomb and no mention of any relics of hers (as there are of other saints, including the apostles) support this claim. However, beyond these theological arguments, Mary’s assumption, which was a reward for her life of sanctity, should challenge us to imitate that type of life, striving to become pure and holy both in body and in soul. This purity will ensure that our own bodies will be glorified on the final resurrection when they shall wear immortality and incorruptibility.

This brings us to the theological importance of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If we put the establishment of this dogma into its historical perspective, we shall notice that it was declared in the aftermath of the World War II when human bodies were treated like trash. With more than 80 million of human lives lost, and often with their bodies destroyed in the most horrific and barbaric manner; and with the horrendous manner in which 6 million Jewish bodies were gassed to total extinction in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, the pope used the declaration of this dogman to counter the narrative that human bodies are trash. He was, in effect, saying that the human bodies, in the eyes of God, are not garbage. By declaring that the Blessed Virgin Mary was taken into heaven body and soul, he is saying that human being is not just soul or spirit alone but rather an “enfleshed” spirit. Our bodies are part and parcel of who we are. Jesus took on a glorified body after his resurrection, and always invited his disciples to observe that he was not just spirit; that he was indeed real by assuming a real body and not a disembodied spirit. When we profess belief in the “resurrection of the body”, we are in effect, saying that the body is not just a trash, but that it is sacred and holy. This is why our bodies are described as “temples of the Holy Spirit”. If this is the case, then nobody should be treated as worthless. Whether we are Jews or Gentiles, black or white, rich or poor, citizens or migrants, natives or refugees, our bodies are all temples of the Holy Spirit. By declaring that Mary was assumed body and soul to heaven, the pope wants to bring to our consciousness this theology of the body which is often overlooked when we maltreat bodies that are different from ours and treat them as rubbishes.

It is in this context of perceiving and treating everybody as a sacred vessel of God without any discrimination that the inauguration of this new English-speaking community here today becomes significant. It is high time we stopped seeing each other as Africans or Europeans and started treating one another as the image of God. Whether you are black or white, African or European, Asian or American, citizen of Belgium or tourist, as long as you speak English language or wish to celebrate mass in English language, this new community welcomes you without any distinction. The church is catholic when we look at one another and see not colour or nationality but the sacred vessel of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is what the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption is desired to teach us. The story of Mahatma Ghandi should be a warning to us. In his autobiography, he recounts how, seriously considering becoming a Christian, he decided to attend a church one Sunday in South Africa, but was turned away by the usher who told him that he was welcome to attend church services, but only in churches reserved for his own people. He went away never to come back. He saw in the usher’s statement a form of caste system which he had been fighting against in his native India. He could not reconcile the inspiring Sermon on the Mount that, among others, endeared him to Jesus with the obvious discrimination practiced by Christians in reserving certain churches for the whites and others for the blacks. No church should be reserved exclusively to any particular group of people because all bodies are equally precious to God. Thank God, from today onwards, our own community will be open to all bodies – white, black, Indian and coloured. We are all sacred vessels of God and temples of the Holy Spirit.