Assumption 2025
Apocalypse 11:19,12:1-6,10; 1Cor 15:20-27; Luke 1:39-56
“Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.”
That line was written by William Wordsworth as a description of Our Lady. He was speaking of the Immaculate Conception—her preservation from all stain of sin—but the description is equally fitting for today’s feast of the Assumption.
In that line by Wordsworth (who, incidentally, wasn’t a Catholic) every word is significant, not least “our”. Mary is one of us: she is OUR Lady because she is OURS. We can even go further and say “she is US”.
Mary is us at our best. She is what we are called to be, a truth which is sometimes expressed by saying that she is the eschatological ikon of the Church—yet in reality, not only of the Church, but of the whole human race. She is the one created being who has fulfilled what, from the beginning, our nature was intended to be, free from sin and raised body and soul to the fullness of life with God.
The claim is sometimes made that the Assumption of Our Lady is “not in the Bible”. That depends what you mean by “not in the Bible”. There is no actual description of the event, but so much is said in both Testaments about the promises made to God’s people that it is impossible not to see the Assumption as the fulfilment of those promises.
As Elizabeth says, when visited by the newly pregnant Mary, the latter is “blessed because she believed that there will be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord”. The word for “fulfilment” is, in the Greek of the Gospel, teleiosis which conveys the concept of ultimate conclusion, of the end of things. It is from the same root—telos—as the word which Jesus was to se to mean “perfect”, “complete”, “thoroughly made” and relates to the end of time. Elizabeth may have been thinking only of the promise of the birth of the Saviour, but at this time she is prophesying under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and in speaking of teleiosis, she is unwittingly proclaiming, in Mary, the fulfilment of all God’s promises.
This is brought out still further in Mary’s response, the Magnificat. How much of this was actually spoken by Mary herself is irrelevant. This is the inspired word of God, delivered by the Holy Spirit, and at its conclusion it speaks not only of the personal promise to Our Lady, but also of the promises to all God’s people, right back to the days of Abraham.
It is these promises which are to be fulfilled in Mary, and to cause “all generations to call [her]blessed”. Those extremist self-styled evangelicals who deny honour to Mary are rejecting the very Gospel which they claim to uphold.
We find a similar teleological—end of time—theme in the extract from the Apocalypse which forms our First Reading. This clearly refers to Mary in the person of “the woman clothed with the sun” who brings forth “the male child who is to rule all the nations”. She is also the Ark of the Covenant, as she carried God within herself.
Yet scripture scholars point out that this woman is also Israel, and the Church. In other words Mary, present in heaven, is there as the representative of all God’s people. In her, the people of Israel, and of the new Israel which is the Church, are already present in heaven. This is indeed a reason for all generations to call her blessed, because her Assumption is also ours: in Mary fulfilled, in us awaited. She is indeed OUR Lady because she is ours, because she is us.
