Sunday, August 15, 2021

15 August 2021 - a good assumption


The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.

Today we celebrate the day when Mary was taken body and soul into heaven. This may at first seem extreme or unlikely, as though later Catholics invented it out of their love for the Mother of God. But when we properly understand Mary's role in salvation we can hardly imagine it happening any other way. 

God’s temple in heaven was opened,
and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple.

Mary was portrayed by the Scriptures as the new ark of the covenant. This makes sense when we consider what the original ark was and what it contained. The old ark held within it the stone tablets of the law, the rod of Aaron which blossomed, though dead, and manna from the desert. It was the location of the mercy seat of God and therefore the most privileged place of encounter with him. Mary contained within herself the word of God, the law written upon a human heart, the true bread from heaven, and the one who, though dead, blossomed forth in new life in the resurrection. Jesus himself was the new and definitive place of encounter with God.

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (see John 14:9).

The symmetry between the story of the Visitation and the story of David bringing the old Ark to Jerusalem was too specific to be coincidental. David and Mary both "got up and went" from the "hill country". Both David and Elizabeth with overwhelmed by the reality of the presence of the ark. It was almost as though they were aware of the "lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder" the earthquake and the violent hailstorm recorded in Revelation when the ark was revealed.

David was afraid of the LORD that day and said, "How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me? (see Second Samuel 6:9).

And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Just as David danced and leaped for joy before the ark so too did John the Baptist leap in the womb of Elizabeth in the presence of Mary the new ark. The old ark remained in the house of Obed-Edom for three months. So too did Mary remain with Elizabeth for three months.

The old ark was sacrosanct and involuble (see Second Samuel 6:6-8) not for its own sake but for the sake of that which it contained, those holy artifacts, and therefore, for what it was meant to be, the uniquely privileged place of access to God's presence. So too with Mary. She has an elevated role not because of anything she has or is apart from Jesus, but precisely because she brings Jesus to us, just as she did for Elizabeth. 



The fact that Mary has this role might at first make us  reluctant to celebrate the Assumption with any real enthusiasm, for it might seem to us that though she is now too distant to be involved, as though she has retired and now watches the story unfold only from afar. But this is definitely not the way our Scripture readings for today would have us understand this reality. Just as Jesus ascended but could still say "I am with you always" so too was Mary's Assumption not a withdrawal, but rather an enthronement. 

When Israel went into battle they put the old ark at the head of their armies. Jesus continues to reign until all of his enemies are put under his feet. As he leads his Church in this war against the principalities and powers and rulers of this present darkness (see Ephesians 6:12) he desires that his mother, the new ark, be at the very head of the armies of the angels and saints. From heaven she is more available to us and not less. She is Our Lady of Victory. She leads us to victory precisely because she only ever directs us to the presence of God in her Son, in whom the victory is already won.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
    “Now have salvation and power come,
        and the Kingdom of our God
        and the authority of his Anointed One.”



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