15 August 2014 - upward call

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.

Let our eyes watch as Mary, most lovely, holy, and exulted of creatures is lifted up to a heavenly home.  Let us watch with hearts filled with hope.  She is lifted up not just for her own glory but to be a sign for us of what awaits those who trust in Jesus with all their hearts.  Listen to the Preface from the Assumption mass:

For today the Virgin Mother of God
was assumed into heaven
as the beginning and image
of your Church's coming to perfection
and a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people;

The Church coming to perfection is us!  Mary is raised on high today to inflame our hope.  The almighty does great things for Mary today.  He wants to do great things for all of us.  We have been "blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavens" (cf. Eph. 1:3).  All of these blessings are found in Mary because in her we find Jesus.    Think about it.  He wants to give us an example, but not something impersonal or abstract, of his love and care for creatures.  He wants to give a foretaste of the future, but not in an impersonal way.  He blesses us through Mary because he wants to be so close to us that we share one mother.

“Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Just as Christ is the "firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep", the New Adam who ascends into heaven so too does Mary go before us as the New Eve, assumed into Heaven.  Jesus goes to prepare a place for us.  He also prepares a place for himself in us.  Mary is the New Tabernacle and the New Temple from which Jesus reigns.  He lifts her up so that she may draw the whole Church with her to form the living stones of this temple, the stars that crown her on her throne (cf. Rev. 12:1).  Don't take the stairs.  Mary is our elevator to heaven!

Jesus cleanses the Church so "that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (cf. Eph. 5:27) Mary is the image into which we are shaped, without no stain of sin.  She is no abstract diagram in a textbook.  She is our mother!  We look for such things when we look for examples.  We look for letter and law when we need to look for Spirit.

So shall the king desire your beauty;
for he is your lord.
They are borne in with gladness and joy;
they enter the palace of the king.

He desires the beauty of the mother whom he created to be all-beautiful.  He will desire our beauty as well.  That is the hope we learn today.  He shows us the beauty to which we are all being fashioned. Today he brings Mary to himself with gladness and joy.  We too shall come before him with all the gladness and joy of the prodigal coming home.  And we need this hope, because the dragon we face is menacing.

Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth,
to devour her child when she gave birth.

But we are not left in his power.

Her child was caught up to God and his throne.
The woman herself fled into the desert
where she had a place prepared by God.

In the arms of our mother we are lifted up.  When we are lowly she allows us to embrace Jesus with her own perfect motherly embrace.  Then, at last, we hear:

“Now have salvation and power come,
and the Kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Anointed One.”