Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - August 15, 2026
Ap 11.19a; 12,1-6a.10ab; Ps 45; 1 Cor 15.20-27a; Lk 1: 39-56
Introduction.
With the celebration of the solemnity of the Assumption the Church invites us to contemplate the synthesis of our Christian life. In fact, in the glorification of Mary we contemplate the destiny of joy that awaits all our lives, will gather all our expectations and will give fulfillment of all our labors, our work and our desire for everlasting peace.
The Church invites us to contemplate this mystery because it shows us that God wants to save the whole man, that is, soul and body. “Jesus rose with the body he had assumed from Mary and he ascended to the Father with his transfigured humanity. With the body, a body like ours, but transfigured. The assumption of Mary, a human creature, gives us the confirmation of what our glorious destiny will be "(Pope Francis).
To the question: what does the Assumption of Mary give to our journey, to our life? the first answer is: "In the Assumption we see that in God there is room for man. God himself is the house with the many apartments of which Jesus speaks about (cf. Jn 14: 2); God is the house of man, in God there is the space of God. And Mary, united with God, does not move away from us, does not go to an unknown galaxy because whoever goes to God is coming close to us, because God is close to all of us, and Mary, united with God, participates in the presence of God and is very close to us, to each one of us "(Benedict XVI). In God there is room for every man, God is close, and Mary, united with God, is remarkably close with her heart as wide as the heart of God.
There is also a second answer: not only in God there is space for every creature, but in every creature, there is space for God. We contemplate this in Our Lady who, as a living Tabernacle, has brought to us the presence of God. "In us there is room for God, and this presence of God in us, so important to enlighten the world in its sadness and in its problems, this presence is realized in faith: in faith we open the doors of our being so that God enters in us, so that God can be the force that gives life and way to our being”. (Id)
1) The goal of the pilgrimage of Heaven
The gift with which God has given us His Son could not be corrupted. The living temple which first hosted the Body of Christ could not have gone to dust. The Assumption[1] of the Virgin clarifies in a beautiful way the sentence that, starting from St. Irenaeus (second century), is often repeated "God became man so that manmight become God." What does it mean "to become God"? It means: to become a living being whose life has no limits because it is forever free from sin and death.
Before reflecting on the today’s Gospel that represents the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabethwhose son rejoices in the womb sensing the presence of the Son of God, I will dwell on the image (icon in Greek) of the Virgin Mother with the divine Child in her arms and whom she holds and protects. Mary, on behalf of all humanity, receives God in a tender and familiar way by touching with her face the face of the little Jesus. Jesus, at the end of his mother’s earthly life, does something similar. If we contemplate the icon of theDormition of Mary (it is with this name that the Eastern Church celebrated the Assumption), we see that in this case it is He who welcomes the Mother: God welcomes humanity.
Let us look at the painting:
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The Virgin Mother is dead. Christ, her Risen Son approaches her body covered in a black dress like a black chrysalis and takes in his arms the soul of His Mother represented as a little girl who completes her birthin the Kingdom. In some icons Jesus brings close to his face the face of this woman-child. Let us contemplatethis assumption, in which the divine welcomes the human. It is a great feast. In this regard, Saint Anselm ofAoste states that the Redeemer wanted to ascend into heaven before his mother not only to prepare in his palace a throne worthy of her, but also to make triumphant and glorious her entrance into heaven, going himself to receive her with all the Angels and the Blessed of Heaven.
The feast of the Assumption reminds us of our destiny of fullness of life in communion with God. Marytaken into heaven in body and soul is the mystery of our faith which shows us that we too, like Mary, are "destined" one day to rise in body and soul. Our whole being, our history, and our relationships of loveexperienced through the heart and the actions of our body will find their fullness and their fulfillment in the love of God! Nothing in our history will be lost, nothing of all those acts of faith, love, humility, and justice made withthe soul and the body will have been in vain.
2) The Road.
The feast of the Assumption of Mary speaks to us not only of the goal, but also of the journey for uspilgrims following the example of our heavenly Mother who was a pilgrim of heaven all the days of her life on earth.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Assumption of Mary, the entry into heaven of the one who believed next to her Son, in anticipation of the goal that awaits every man. Mary goes before us welcoming the Word that generates the Son in us, but she goes ahead of us also in the hope of the resurrection, that is, the assumption of all humanity in the life of God.
To understand this mystery, today's liturgy takes us at the beginning of the story in which the sky came to earth and became a little germ of life in the womb of a simple village woman, and offers us the Gospel passage which recounts the visit of the Mother of the Messiah to her cousin Elizabeth. The Mother of God,after receiving the announcement of her motherhood by the angel, went in haste and with love to her elderly relative Elizabeth to share her joy with someone who was going through a similar situation. The reason for thefeast, then, is the joy of being loved by a fruitful Love.
Let us imagine the scene in the house of Zechariah. You could say that the protagonists are two women who meet, two pregnant women, one old, old of ten centuries of waiting (the Baptist represents more than 2000 years of waiting; he represents the whole humanity waiting for the Savior promised at the beginning of time), a woman who bears within herself the ancient expectation of humanity. The other, a young girl whobears within herself the Expected by humanity and carries in herself the good news, the new life. The old one carries the desire, the young one the Wanted One. One woman carries the hunger, the other the food. And their encounter becomes advent.
I think that it is fair to say that this meeting does not take place between Mary and Elizabeth, but between the two children who are in the womb of their joyful mothers. Then Mary burst into the Magnificat, her canticle of joy: all ages will call her blessed; in body and soul she will forever be with the Lord because she collaborated with him in the work of redemption.
Mary is the Mother of God because she believed His word and accepted His proposal. Her joy is true forall who act like her, whom today we celebrate recovering the deep sense of gratitude to the Lord for Hispresence and for His visit to us.
3) The visitation of the Mother of Life.
The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth allowed the visit of Jesus to John the Baptist.
It was not a courtesy visit or a visit to give humanitarian aid to an elderly woman. It was a humble gesture of charity. She showed that God had really come down to visit and redeem the entire humanity.
At the beginning of the story of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth there is a word to which it is not givensufficient importance: "in a hurry". "In those days (after the Annunciation) Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah" (Lk 1: 39). Why, instead of staying in meditation of the words of the AngelGabriel and wait for the fulfillment of the announcement in her house, Mary went "in haste" to her old cousinwho had been finally pregnant? Because she was driven by the charity of Christ. Her "haste" does not mean that she ran on the road to Ain Karim, a village near Jerusalem where Elizabeth lived. It means that there is and there must be no delay between the conception of Jesus in Her and the presence of Jesus among men.
We must do the same. If we must give birth to Jesus in us and by us, as eminently as Mary did, we must let the Spirit flourish in us, leaving ... without delay. Every grace is a mission. Every vocation is the mission to take "in haste" the presence of Christ in the world.
This vocation is lived by the consecrated Virgins in the world starting from their total commitment to Christand their spousal communion with Him ("Are you resolved to accept solemn consecration as a bride of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God? I am." Rite consecration of Virgins) which implies that the fullness ofvirginity must be donated by the sense of motherhood. They are really virgins and wives when they begin to feel mothers and when their zeal to save souls and bring them to God pushes them "in haste" to make available to the Church and to humanity all their resources and their existence. Then, they really give lifeserving the Life, as in the prayer of the Rite of Consecration of Virgins: “Let us pray to God the almighty Father through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ that he will pour out the Holy Spirit of his love on these servants whom he has chosen to be consecrated to his service.”
Patristic Reading
St. John Damascene (A.D. 676 - 754/787)
Sermon II on the Dormition of Mary
There is no one in existence who is able to praise worthily the holy death of God's Mother, even if he should have a thousand tongues and a thousand mouths. Not if all the most eloquent tongues could be united would their praises be sufficient. She is greater than all praise. Since, however, God is pleased with the efforts of a loving zeal, and the Mother of God with what concerns the service of her Son, suffer me now to revert again to her praises. This is in obedience to your orders, most excellent pastors, so dear to God, and we call upon the Word made flesh of her to come to our assistance. He gives speech to every mouth which is opened for Him. He is her sole pleasure and adornment. We know that in celebrating her praises we pay off our debt, and that in so doing we are again debtors, so that the debt is ever beginning afresh. It is fitting that we should exalt her who is above all created things, governing them as Mother of the God who is their Creator, Lord, and Master. Bear with me you who hang upon the divine words, and receive my good will. Strengthen my desire, and be patient with the weakness of my words. It is as if a man were to bring a violet of royal purple out of season, or a fragrant rose with buds of different hues, or some rich fruit of autumn to a mighty potentate who is divinely appointed to rule over men. Every day he sits at a table laden with every conceivable dish in the perfumed courts of his palace. He does not look at the smallness of the offering, or at its novelty so much as he admires the good intention, and with reason. This he would reward with an abundance of GIFTS
and favours. So we, in our winter of poverty, bring garlands to our Queen, and prepare a flower of oratory for the feast of praise. We break our mind's stony desire with iron, pressing, as it were, the unripe grapes. And may you receive with more and more favour the words which fall upon your eager and listening ears.
What shall we offer the Mother of the Word if not our words? Like rejoices in like and in what it loves. Thus, then, making a start and loosening the reins of my discourse, I may send it forth as a charger ready equipped for the race. But do Thou, O Word of God, be my helper and auxiliary, and speak wisdom to my unwisdom. By Thy word make my path clear, and direct my course according to Thy good pleasure, which is the end of all wisdom and discernment.Today the holy Virgin of Virgins is presented in the heavenly temple. Virginity in her was so strong as to be a consuming fire. It is forfeited in every case by child-birth. But she is ever a virgin, before the event, in the birth itself, and afterwards. To-day the sacred and living ark of the living God, who conceived her Creator Himself, takes up her abode in the temple of God, not made by hands. David, her forefather, rejoices. Angels and Archangels are in jubilation, Powers exult, Principalities and Dominations, Virtues and Thrones are in gladness: Cherubim and Seraphim magnify God. Not the least of their Praise is it to refer praise to the Mother of glory. To-day the holy dove, the pure and guileless soul, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, putting off the ark of her body, the life-giving receptacle of Our Lord, found rest to the soles of her feet, taking her flight to the spiritual world, and dwelling securely in the sinless country above. To-day the Eden of the new Adam receives the true paradise, in which sin is remitted and the tree of life growl, and our nakedness is covered. For we are no longer naked and uncovered, and unable to bear the splendour of the divine likeness. Strengthened with the abundant grace of the Spirit, we shall no longer betray our nakedness in the words: "I have Put off my garment, how shall I put it on?" The serpent, by whose deceitful promise we were likened to brute beasts, did not enter into this paradise. He, the only begotten Son of God, God himself, of the same substance as the Father, took His ] human nature of the pure Virgin. Being constituted a man, He made mortality immortal, and was clothed as a man. Putting aside corruption, He was indued with the incorruptibility of the Godhead.
Today the spotless Virgin, untouched by earthly affections, and all heavenly in her thoughts, was not dissolved in earth, but truly entering heaven, dwells in the heavenly tabernacles. Who would be wrong to call her heaven, unless indeed he truly said that she is greater than heaven in surpassing dignity? The Lord and Creator of heaven, the Architect of all things beneath the earth and above, of creation, visible and invisible, Who is not circumvented by place (if that which surrounds things is rightly termed place), created Himself, without human co-operation, an Infant in her. He made her a rich treasure-house of His all-pervading and alone uncircumscribed Godhead, subsisting entirely in her without passion, remaining entire in His universality and Himself uncircumscribed. To-day the life-giving treasury and abyss of charity (I know not how to trust my lips to speak of it) is hidden in immortal death. She meets it without fear, who conceived death's destroyer, if indeed we may call her holy and vivifying departure by the name of death. For how could she, who brought life to all, be under the dominion of death ? But she obeys the law of her own Son, and inherits this chastisement as a daughter of the first Adam, since her Son, who is the life, did not refuse it. As the Mother of the living God, she goes through death to Him. For if God said: "Unless the first man put out his hand to take and taste of the tree of life, he shall live for ever," how shall she, who received the Life Himself, without beginning or end, or finite vicissitudes, not live for ever.
Of old the Lord God banished from the garden of Eden our first parents after their disobedience, when they had dulled the eye of their heart through their sin, and weakened their mind's discernment, and had fallen into death-like apathy. But, now, shall not paradise receive her, who broke the bondage of all passion, sowed the seed of obedience to God and the Father, and was the beginning of life to the whole human race ? Will not heaven open its gates to her with rejoicing ? Yes, indeed. Eve listened to the serpent, adopted his suggestion, was caught by the lure of false and deceptive pleasure, and was condemned to pain and sorrow, and to bear children in suffering. With Adam she received the sentence of death, and was placed in the recesses of Limbo. How can death claim as its prey this truly blessed one, who listened to God's word in humility, and was filled with the Spirit, conceiving the Father's gift through the archangel, bearing without concupiscence or the co-operation of man the Person of the Divine Word, who fills all things, bringing Him forth, without the pains of childbirth, being wholly united to God? How could Limbo open its gates to her ? How could corruption touch the life-giving body ? These are things quite foreign to the soul and body of God's Mother. Death trembled before her. In approaching her Son, death had learnt experience from His sufferings, and had grown wiser. The gloomy descent to hell was not for her, but a joyous, easy, and sweet passage to heaven. If, as Christ, the Life and the Truth says: "Wherever I am, there is also my minister," how much more shall not His mother be with Him? She brought Him forth without pain, and her death, also, was painless. The death of sinners is terrible, for in it, sin, the cause of death, is sacrificed. What shall we say of her if not that she is the beginning of perpetual life. Precious indeed is the death of His saints to the Lord God of powers. More than precious is the passing away of God's Mother. Now let the heavens and the angels rejoice: let the earth and men be full of gladness. Let the air resound with song and canticle, and dark night put off its gloom, and emulate the brightness of day through the scintillating stars. The living city of the Lord God is assumed from God's temple, the visible Sion, and kings bring forth His most precious gift, their mother, to the heavenly JERUSALEM, that is to say, the apostles constituted princes by Christ, over all the earth, accompany the ever virginal Mother of God.
The complete text is at : http://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterpentecost6.html
[1] The dogma of the Assumption was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII on November 1 of the Holy Year 1950, through the Apostolic Constitution Deus Munificentissimus. But what it described was already present in the faith of the church ("sensus fidelium"), and in particular in the popular one, from the 4th century AD when a Church Father, Epiphanius of Salamis, tried to answer the questionabout the ultimate fate of Mary. The question was if Mary, being completely free from sin (one of the effects of original sin is death) had to succumb to the latter as all human beings. So in the 6th century, the Bishop of Livias (near Jericho) said in a sermon: "It was fitting that the body that had carried and kept the Son of God, after being on the Earth, would have welcomed gloriously in heaventogether with the soul. "
Meanwhile, the Church began to celebrate the Marian feasts. The first one was indeed the one that is at the origin of the Feast of the Assumption. On August 15, 453 in Jerusalem a church, called with the evocative term of "Dormition" because Mary at the end of her earthly journey was not dead but asleep, was dedicated to the death of Mary. In the Eastern tradition the death of Mary is called "dormitio" (= fall asleep) or even "transitus" (= pass).
Later, in the 7th century Modestus, Bishop Ordinary of Jerusalem, announced in his homily that "Mary was taken by the Lord of Lords into Glory" and praised the passing of the glorious Mother of God, "taken from the tomb and called to Himself by her Son in a way known only to Him."
