THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY -- OUR LIFE, OUR SWEETNESS, AND OUR HOPE

Introduction

First Year Anniversary of the Monthly Marian Recollection and Healing

On this First Saturday of the month of August we mark the First Anniversary of our monthly Marian Recollection. For one whole year now, we have been coming to this simple but holy Archdiocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Makati City to pray, to reflect and be blest, always together with the Blessed Mother, always through Jesus Christ, her Son, always by the work of the Holy Spirit, her Spouse, and always by the call of God our Father and hers. We thank the Blessed Virgin Mary for this monthly outpouring of God’s graces through her. We thank her for bringing inspiration to many devotees. We thank her for the countless favors constantly granted to those who trust in her and come to join us – the childless gives birth, the jobless finds employment, the sorrowing rejoices, the contrite is forgiven, the helpless child in the womb is respected and protected, the unborn reposes in peace, the aging receives strength and wisdom, the dying is assisted in their passing away, and many others. We praise God the Father who created Mary. We thank Jesus who gave us Mary to be our own mother. We glorify the Holy Spirit who made Mary holy.

Because we believe that devotion to the Blessed Mother – and any religious devotion, for that matter – must always be accompanied by formation, we started last year offering this monthly Marian recollection. Without catechetical and theological formation, any devotion leads to fanaticism.

There is no other church in the entire Philippines where Marian recollection is held every month. This monthly formation can be found, received and benefited from only here in the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Archdiocese of Manila.

This special privilege that already blest and continues to bless many souls is not to be credited to any individual – my self included – but to the Lord Jesus alone who revealed to us His dying wish, “Behold your mother” (Jn 19:27). We came here the past year and beheld our mother. We kept on coming here and the more we beheld her the more we wanted to see her. And we hope we could continue coming here every month, even every week or everyday if possible, as another year begins, to behold our Merciful Mother and, with her who is also the Mother of Life, contemplate the face of Christ.

We contemplate the face of Christ even as we behold our mother. She was first to tell us, “Do whatever He tells you” (Jn 2:5). She has every right to tell us so, not only because she is the mother of the Lord, but, most importantly, because she was also the first to have done all that Jesus tells us. Mary is the first and perfect disciple of her own Son who is our Lord. While normally it is the child that takes in itself the image of its parents, in the case of Mary – as it should be in our case, too – it is she who has been configured to Jesus Christ, her Son. Thus, when we contemplate her life, we see the face of Christ.

We beheld our mother the past year and contemplated the face of Christ. We move on to another year of contemplating her life so that we may see even more the image of her Son. As we continue to move on to the second year of our monthly Marian recollection, we pray that, by following her example and aided by her prayers, we would become more and more like Jesus, the Master. For we are convinced that our ultimate joy is becoming like the Master.

Even as she already assured us through St. Juan Diego with the words “…you are in the hallow of my mantle and in the crossing of my arms”, may Our Lady of Guadalupe allow us to enter her womb as often as needed so that we could be formed unto the image and likeness of her Son. As she once gave birth to Jesus, may she continue delivering more “Jesus-es” into the world through our being configured to Christ.

The New Format of The First Saturday Monthly Marian Recollection

We wish to make our Marian recollections for this year more focused and thematic. Beginning today, a theme for every month will be selected in relation to a particular feast of or dogma on the Blessed Virgin Mary that is to be celebrated within the given month. For example, this month, let us highlight the dogma of the Assumption as we prepare to commemorate it on August 15. Next month, we may reflect on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary or her Seven Sorrows, since we will celebrate them on September 8 and September 15, respectively. October may well be a recollection on the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And so forth and so on.

It would also be helpful for us who regularly come for this monthly spiritual nourishment to finalize its format. It is worth having printed copies of prayers, songs, and readings that are neatly arranged to be used for the regular flow of our monthly Marian recollection. Volunteer benefactors to produce this prayer booklet are, of course, most welcome.

Aside from the reflection proper in itself, the usual elements of our monthly Marian activity remain. We begin by exposing the Blessed Sacrament at 3:00 P.M., followed by the praying of the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy because Our Lady of Guadalupe introduced herself to St. Juan Diego as the Merciful Mother, then moments of silence precede the reading from either the Sacred Scriptures or a spiritual writing. After the reading is we return to a more prolonged silence that prepares us for the points for reflection on the theme of the month. The 12th of Life prayer, a song to the Blessed Mother, and a prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe follow the points. Individual and sacramental confession is then made available even as the Blessed Sacrament remains exposed for personal adoration. Those who feel the need for a break may step out of the church to satisfy their need during this period, but always in silence. The Blessed Sacrament is reposed at 5:30 P.M. and the praying of the Holy Rosary immediately follows. Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe is prayed at 6:00 P.M., which precedes the celebration of the Sunday Vigil Mass. The Holy Mass is concluded with the healing blessing where the Blessed Sacrament is brought close to the people, most especially the sick.

The Theme for August

Following the new format of our monthly Marian recollection, let us focus our reflection today on the greatest Marian feast celebrated this month: the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So great is this feast that the Church celebrates it as a solemnity.

Solemnities are the highest in rank among all liturgical celebrations. All Sundays, for example, in the light of the first Easter Sunday, are solemnities. All Holy Days of Obligation are solemnities, too. But not all solemnities are Holy Days of obligation. In the Philippines, while the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a solemnity, it is not a Holy Day of Obligation.

Today is August 6. Perhaps, none, if not very few, of us are aware that today is exactly nine days before the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If we were to make a novena in honor of this Marian dogma, we would have to begin today. Let us, therefore, reflect on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary – Theotokos, God-Bearer

Honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary had a late start in the Church. In the first four centuries there was no devotion to Our Lady and little reflection on her place in salvation history. The main issue during those centuries was the true identity of Jesus. The Church was fully absorbed in forming her theology on Jesus Christ. The Church struggled to find an answer to the complex questions surrounding the humanity and divinity of Jesus. In those days, this issue was a matter not only of the bishops and theologians but of everyone in the Church. Whole cities were divided over the answers and battles had been fought on account of them.

The attention of the Church turned to Mary only after the divinity of Jesus was proclaimed. In 431, the Church convoked the Council of Ephesus where she defined her teaching regarding how the Son of God was given human birth. It was then that one of the titles of Mary was accepted by the Church: Mary was theotokos, meaning, “God-bearing”. To affirm that the Son of God had human birth, the Council Fathers proclaimed that Mary was theotokos: she bore Jesus in her womb and gave birth to Him like any mother. It was, however, only in 1964, at the Second Vatican Council, that the Church officially referred to Mary as “Mother of God”.

The Dogma of the Assumption

Until the middle of the sixth century, there were no feasts in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the West. She was celebrated alongside with the other saints and martyrs of the Church. However, in the Eastern Church there were many Marian feasts early in history, celebrating her conception, birth, presentation in the Temple, annunciation, and even assumption that was called by different names like “dormition”. In the East, the most important Marian feast was always the Assumption. This feast and all other Marian celebrations were later adopted by the West and included in its liturgical calendar.

The belief in the Assumption originated in the popular faith of the people. Given her unique role in salvation history, the Faithful could not believe that Mary’s body underwent corruption and disintegrate when her earthly life was over. She who had no stain of Adam’s sin could not share in the consequence of Adam’s fall, which is the decay of sinful flesh. The Faithful, from the start, came to believe that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven, thus, assuring that she was present in God, even now, body and soul.

But it took hundreds of years before the Church finally defined this Marian dogma. It was only on November 1, 1950, through the apostolic constitution entitled, Munificentissimus Deus, that Pope Pius XII defined the dogma. The definition may be summed up in these or similar words: The belief that the Most Holy Virgin Mary, after her earthly sojourn, was taken up into the glory of heaven, body and soul, really forms part of the deposit of faith, received from the apostles.

When the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was defined, humankind was yet rising from the ashes of the last world war. To a world that languished in misery brought about my man’s inhumanity to man, the Church offers as the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a gift of hope and a beacon of light.

Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope

The phrase “our life, our sweetness, and our hope” has always been referred to the Blessed Virgin Mary. If parallelism would be permitted, we may say that while Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Mary is our life, our sweetness, and our hope. These are the qualities we attribute to her when we pray or chant the Salve Regina. Mary, though called upon as Queen in this beautiful prayer, is not far from us because she, who is at the same time our Mother, is our life, our sweetness, and our hope. Part of the vocation of motherhood is the role of delivering life, providing sweetness, and giving hope; not one without the rest but always the three together. This is likewise integral in the motherhood of Mary in relation to us.

The glorious Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in itself, and not the Blessed Virgin Mary in herself only, may also be viewed as our life, our sweetness, and our hope. In the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we see what we are really destined for. What already happened to her through the mystery of the Assumption will also happen to us at the end of time, when all the dead shall be raised and the just taken up by the Lord with Him in heaven. The belief in the resurrection of the body forms part of the articles of our Faith, as we proclaim each time we say, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy, catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.” The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the proof of the veracity of our belief in the resurrection of the body.

Thus, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary tells us what our life really is. On earth, our life is the locus of God’s glorification. St. Irenaus said, “Gloria Dei vivens homo” (“The glory of God is man alive” as commonly translated, but better yet “The glory of God lives in man”). In heaven, our life is meant to be glorified with God, body and soul.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the balm that shall heal all our wounds and the promise of sweetness after this valley of tears. The Blessed Mother was a woman of contradiction herself, like her Son. In her, God “raised the lowly and threw the mighty from their thrones”, “fed the hungry with good things while the rich were sent away empty.” Her Assumption into heaven certainly has eschatological overtones, too, for even now she enjoys bodily and spiritually what St. Paul wrote as “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor 2:9).

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the glimpse of how our hope of sharing in the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus will come to pass. Our hope for our own resurrection has been confirmed by the Risen Lord through the Assumption of the Blessed Mother. With each a body to experience God, we will be resurrected from the earth and assumed into heaven by the same Lord.

Conclusion

Our belief in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary entails among other things three important tasks.

First, we must be guided by this belief to live our lives here on earth with heaven in our minds as our final goal always. Everything we do here on earth should be oriented by our belief that we are destined to be resurrected so as to be assumed into heaven. Earth, no matter how comfortable we may become with it, is not our true home. We are on a pilgrimage to heaven where we are meant to arrive at not only as spirits but as embodied spirits.

Second, our belief in the Assumption should provide reason for us to give utmost care and reverence for the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the human body. While we concern our selves with the salvation of souls, we should equally labor to meet the material needs of the human body. When we defend the souls of people from evil, we must also deliver their bodies from all harm and violation. Both our souls and our bodies belong to God. Both our souls and bodies, Jesus came to save and redeem.

Third, with Mary already assumed into heaven, we see her to be the icon of the Church. God accomplished in her what He wishes to accomplish to His Church. The Church must therefore imitate Mary in her complete submission to the will of God, every-rooted in Him, yearning for full re-union with Him in heaven, and always faithful to her role of being a beacon of hope in the midst of a despairing world. And because each one of us constitutes the Church, with Christ Jesus as our Head, this is a mandate for each one of us individually and not only communally.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is our life, our sweetness, and our hope. Her Assumption into heaven, body and soul, is likewise our life, our sweetness, and our hope. We pray to be like Mary as we behold her and contemplate Christ in her so that one day we may be assumed into heaven, body and soul, like her too.