Congregation for the Clergy: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary knows very well that, if God is great, then we are also great. Our life is not impoverished, rather it is elevated, enlarged and enriched by God's greatness and becomes great in the glory of the Lord.

Like Mary, we must make space every day for the Lord in our lives, starting with ones prayer and giving time to God.  We don't lose our time if we offer it to Him.  If the Lord enters 'our' time, all our time becomes fuller and richer.  Our poor time becomes God's time and touches eternity!

P>ROME, Italy (Catholic Online) - The celebration of the Assumption is a day of joy, it is the feast of God's greatness and of the greatness of man in Him.  Today the Magnificat resonates joyfully, this extraordinary poem emerges from Mary's heart and flourished on her lips.  The Gospel canticle is a portrait of the Madonna, through which we can see her just as she is. 

It starts with the acclamation:  'My soul magnifies the Lord' that really means  'proclaims the greatness' of the Lord.  Mary wants God to be great in the world and in her personal life.  She is not afraid that the Lord can be a rival, she doesn't fear that God in His greatness may take something of her liberty away. 

Mary knows very well that, if God is great, then we are also great.  Our life is not impoverished, rather it is elevated, enlarged and enriched by God's greatness and becomes great in the glory of the Lord.

In the fact that our first parents thought the opposite, we precisely grasp the core of the original sin.  They feared that, if God was too great, he would take something from their lives. They thought to put Him aside to have more space for themselves.  

This is also the great temptation of every man!  This is also the great temptation of every ideology.  However, where God disappears, man doesn't become greater, rather he loses the divine dignity, the glow of heaven on his face.  Only if God is great, then man is also great.

Mary's joyous humility invites us to understand that it is this way.  We must beware of distancing ourselves from God.   We are better to recognise that we are great in His presence  and so  we must ensure that He becomes important  in our lives!  It is important therefore that God is great also between us in both our private and public lives. 

Like Mary, we must make space every day for the Lord in our lives, starting with ones prayer and giving time to God.  We don't lose our time if we offer it to Him.  If the Lord enters 'our' time, all our time becomes fuller and richer.  Our poor time becomes God's time and touches eternity!

Today's Solemnity reveals to us  that God, in Christ, has definitively overcome and won the time and space for man, introducing him into His eternity.  Our 'eternity' is based on his merciful love.  He who is loved by God and welcomes His love doesn't ever die.  

In Him, in His thoughts and His love we are always preserved and therefore become immortal in all our personal being.  This love is the bearer of the immortality that we call 'heaven'.  God is so great as to have a place also for us.  This is the meaning of the dogmatic expression of the 'bodily Assumption into heaven' of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The faith doesn't promise only the salvation of the soul  but announces the eternal value of what occurred on this earth.  Nothing that is precious and dear to us is lost: 'But even the hairs on your head are numbered.' (Mt 10:30)

This truth that gives us a profound joy today: the Most Holy Virgin Mary, with her Assumption into heaven, testifies to the authentic meaning of our existence. 

God has assumed into heavenly glory Her who was given to us by the Son at the foot of the cross.  The Virgin Mary is close to each of us and she knows our heart, she listens to our prayers and she is close to us in our necessities and sustains us with her maternal goodness.

We can always trust our entire lives to this sweet Mother.  We thank the Lord for the gift of His masterpiece, the heavenly Mother assumed into glory and we pray  so that the Church, by showing Mary's beauty, may help mankind to recognise his own unprecedented dignity that is reflected in God's majesty.

(Ap 11:19; 12: 6-10; Ps 44; 1 Cor 15:20-26; Lk 1:39-56)

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