WOMAN OF EARTH AND SKY

Mary
she is the only pure fleshly being
the only fleshly one who is pure.
…
The Holy Virgin
it is the greatest blessing
that fell to earth.

C. Péguy

T he solemnity of the Assumption is the celebration of our hope. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, states: “When this body, our dwelling on earth, is destroyed, we will receive a dwelling in heaven, an eternal dwelling, not built with hands” (2 Cor 5:1). Not death then is the final end of our days, but life, that fullness of life which, with faith in Christ, we call resurrection. In this light, Teresa of Lisieux, on her deathbed, exclaimed: “I am not dying but entering life.“

The Church, looking at Mary, today also highlights another very important aspect. We pray in the Collect: “O almighty and eternal God, who raised the Immaculate Virgin Mary, body and soul, to the glory of heaven…“. Note, it is stated that not only the soul is glorified but also the body, that is, the totality of the Virgin’s being is raised to the eternal splendour of heaven. What is already fully real in her now will be granted to us, still pilgrims, at the end of time. If our body will be glorified by God, we must not consider it a cumbersome shell, simply an earthly habitus but the locus where God carries out his work. In fact, first he created us, then he redeemed us, and in the end, he will glorify us. If this is true, as it is, we should love the body; and love is a sacramentum that refers us to the Giver, who love us in fragility and beauty, in vigour and in weakness. We should even become reconciled with this idea. To sum up: we can say, with the theologian Karl Rahner: “ The poor flesh, which some hate and others adore, has been made worthy of being eternally with God and of being thus forever saved and confirmed. The here-and-now existence of the flesh is not a wall that keeps us eternally divided from God nor is it something that should be abolished to reach God. Rather, the flesh was created by God, redeemed by the Son, sanctified by the Spirit and 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 also, here on earth, offers us a positive recovery of our humanity. In this context, Saint Anselm of Canterbury states that the glorification of Mary involves nothing less than creation. Mary, although 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 who will live on earth. Cardinal Newman also reminds us of this in one of his poems where he places this greeting on the lips of the Virgin Mary, which is not a farewell but a promise:

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

St John Henry Newman

Commento a cura di d. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey