This past Monday, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church’s conviction from the beginning, that Mary was assumed body and soul into Heaven at the end of her remarkable mission here on Earth.
Because she was conceived without the stain of original sin, and because she remained sinless throughout her life, Mary did not suffer the consequence of sin, which is death, with its separation of body and soul and earthly decay.
Her Assumption is her rightful and worthy participation in the fullness of the resurrection of her Son over the forces of sin and death.
Finding the value of the person
Although the dogma of the Assumption was not officially declared until 1950 by Pope Pius XII, the writings of the Church Fathers evidence a profound conviction regarding this mystery from the earliest years of the Church.
I wonder if the pope who had lived through the terrible suffering and evil of World War II, during which millions of people died in this global annihilation of human dignity, felt the need to proclaim the transcendent glory and absolute value of the person.
In a bloody epoch, which saw literally millions of corpses piled up on battlefields, in death camps, and in the rubble of cities, he wanted to lift up the meaning and beauty of the human body, created by God as a Temple of the Holy Spirit.
We live in an age of profound disconnection, despite or perhaps partially because of our electronic devices, designed to facilitate communication.
Many people feel disconnected from God, each other, the government, their families, the Church, their work, and most profoundly themselves.
The spirit of the age seeks to convince us that the essence of our humanity lies solely in our intellect and will, that our body is simply an external appendage to our thought and desire.
This fundamental error leads many people to think they can define the humanity of an unborn child, decide when an individual’s life should end, or what sexual preference/identity feels right to them.
In this mindset, my body simply becomes a thing that I can control, define, or change. It is only a small step to think of other people’s bodies in the same distorted fashion.
God reveals the astonishing reality of our humanity, a beauty and a truth which is altogether different from the current zeitgeist.
In the pages of Genesis, we learn God’s intention and purpose for us. He made us in His image and likeness; we are fashioned from clay, yet contain within our being the imperishable spirit of God. We have a soul!
We are profoundly made for relationship, with God and with each other.
In a complementary sexuality, Adam and Eve live a sacred bond of union in which they share in the creativity and fertility of the Lord Himself, charged to share in God’s Trinitarian life and to cooperate in the procreation of children, in love and harmony with each other.
We are incarnate spirits, not simply a mind or a will trapped in a human body.
The fact that we live and move in the flesh and the sexuality of our body is the direct gift and intention of our Creator.
We only find our identity and fulfillment in a relationship with God and in a life of self-gift, whereby we make a radical donation of our existence to another.
The importance of marriage and family
For this reason, the Church esteems marriage and family as the fundamental way by which God creates and sustains the human race, redeemed by Jesus Christ.
In marriage, the spouses give themselves fully and exclusively to each other: Body, soul, mind, and heart.
The physical gift of self in the marriage act is an external expression of and a participation in the total gift of self, which is the consummation of the sacrament.
Sexual activity outside of the marital bond is sinful because it disconnects the body from this total sacramental expression, only realized in marriage.
Of course, millions of people in the Church are not married; we think of priests, Sisters, Brothers, consecrated virgins, and celibate members of religious institutes.
Through a life of virginity or celibacy, they consecrate their lives and their sexuality to love the Lord and His people in a life of service to the entire Body.
God roots marital love in the specificity of these two spouses and their children; He roots celibate love in the life and service of the ecclesial community.
Of course, God calls single persons as well to love Him and make a gift of themselves through a life of chastity, virtue, generosity, and charity.
The common base of every vocation in the Church is our Baptismal consecration and call to holiness.
Our mission and purpose are to become saints in the Mystical Body of Christ.
As virgin and mother, as spouse of the Holy Spirit, and the wife of St. Joseph, Mary lived out the perfect example of holiness’ integration.
Her body, soul, mind, and heart were always completely and perfectly in union with God and His will.
In her fiat, at the end of the Annunciation narrative, she gives herself completely to God and conceives within her body, the enfleshed life of Christ, the Son of God.
In the Assumption, we celebrate, honor, and ponder this remarkable mystery by which God has saved us from sin and death, showing us our identity, vocation, and destiny, all wrapped up in the life and mission of the Blessed Virgin Mary.