WOMAN OF EARTH AND SKY

The solemnity of the Assumption is the feast of our hope. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says: “When this body, our habitation on earth, is destroyed, we shall receive a dwelling in heaven, an everlasting abode, not built by hand of man” (2 Cor 5:1). Not death, then, is the final estuary of our days but life, that fullness of life which by faith in Christ we call resurrection. In this light, Thérèse of Lisieux, on her deathbed, exclaimed: «I am not dying but I am entering in life”. The Church, looking to Mary today also highlights another most important aspect. The collect of the Mass asks to pray: «Almighty and eternal God, you raised to the glory of heaven in body and soul the immaculately conceived Virgin Mary”. Note that it says that not only the soul but the body also is glorified but also the body, the totality of the Virgin’s being is raised to the splendour of eternity in heaven. And what is already full reality in her, will be granted to us, still pilgrims, at the end of time. If our body will be glorified by God it is evident that we must not consider it a cumbersome envelope, merely an earthly habitus, but rather the locus where God does his work. In fact, first he created it, then he redeemed it; in the end, he will glorify it. If this is true—and it is—then we should love the body; and love it as a sacramentum which sends us back to the Giver. We should love the body in its fragility and beauty, in its strength and in its weakness. Maybe we should also be reconciled with it. In summary, we can say, with the theologian Karl Rahner that “the poor flesh, which some hate and some adore, has been made worthy of being eternally with God and thus to be forever saved and confirmed. The existence, here and now, of the flesh, it is not a wall that keeps us eternally separated from God, nor is it something that would have to be abolished in order to get to God. Rather, the flesh was created by God; it was redeemed by the Son; it was sanctified by the Spirit; and it is now eternally saved for us.” The solemnity of the Assumption is therefore full of joy and hope, as we have said; a solemnity that not only projects us into Heaven but even here on earth points to a positive recovery of our humanity. Mary, though assumed into God, is however still among us, in the Church, as a vigilant and caring Mother. In her, divine tenderness is beside us until the last day, until the last step of the last man to live on earth. Cardinal Newman also reminds us of this in a poem where he places this greeting on the lips of the Virgin Mary, which is not a dismissal but a promise:

You have not lost my face,
I am always close to you.
I still keep the smiles you loved on earth,
the sweetness of your meetings,
your clear gaiety.
Now as then
I hear the last words
of what is barely whispered,
prayer in a low voice,
until the fugitive breath…

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Santa Maria – Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey