The Assumption
My Uncle John always laments that common sense is no longer common. Analogously, we may find this Solemnity of the Assumption to no longer be commonly accepted. Many people do not seem to understand why Catholics believe this doctrine. It seems strange to the world that anyone, besides Our Lord, would avoid bodily corruption at the end of earthly life by having their body and soul assume into Heaven.
What is even more strange to non-Catholics is that this doctrine seems to only be a recent thing! It was not until November 1, 1950, that Venerable Pope Pius XII in His Apostolic Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus (The Most Generous God) solemnly defined and decreed the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
This bold dogma can at times scandalize our separated Protestant brothers and sisters. Why do we then believe it?
First, we have to remind people that the dogma was not invented in the 1950’s. Pope Pius XII’s encyclical actually cites the tradition of this dogma found in theancient liturgical books of both East and West.
Secondly, we have to understand that this teaching is actually common sense. Not only is it common sense by its reasonableness and logical coherency, but it actually reveals a great deal about us. In other words, this doctrine is not only logical, but it is actually helpful for our world today.
What makes it logical? Well, there was Adam and Eve who fell in sin. And as St. Paul wrote in our second reading, “For since death came through man, the resurrection of the dead came also through man” (1 Cor 15.21). In other words, Jesus is ‘Adam 2.0’. He is the new Adam. But then we cannot help but ask if sin came exclusively from Adam’s decision? Of course we would say that the consequences of original sin involved the cooperation of Eve, and indirectly came through her; both Adam and Eve were responsible, and each played a different role in the fall of humanity.
So if we agree that both Adam and Eve are responsible for the fall of humanity, and Jesus Christ is the ‘Adam 2.0.’ by redeeming humanity, then who is the New Eve? It is true that it is only Christ, the God-Man who redeems us by his blood. It is his sacrifice that merits our salvation. He is the one mediator between God and man.
However, his human nature (his human body, soul, heart, and mind) came through Mary. God chose to depend upon a woman to provide the physical human body through which he would redeem the world. Jesus Christ is not only an image if the Invisble Father through his Divine Nature. Jesus Christ is also the image of his Mother through his Human Nature. In other words, Our Lord’s humanity would have looked like his mother. He got His eyes, His hair, His nose, from Mary. And since Jesus had no earthly Father, she is the only one from whom he was born! Mary is that important. The Son of God chose to be biologically, genetically, related to her.
From the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the mother comically shares with her daughter that “the man may be the head the household, but the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head anyway she wants.” Just as the mom in the movie explains that the father acts through the mother, the Assumption reveals that we are redeemed by a man through a woman.
But the Assumption reveals something more. That is, it reveals to us the way creation relates to itself. What this reveals is that humanity is essentially male and female. Creation is essentially marital. What it means to be human cannot adequately be expressed without both sexes. Just as God first related both a male and a female together in Adam and Eve, so now God redeems the world through the relationship between one man and one woman; Jesus Christ and Mary. Christ saves as male only in union with a female, and what Adam and Eve were supposed to do together (but failed together), now Jesus and his Mother redeem together. It reveals to us you cannot understand masculinity isolated from femininity, and vice versa.
It is a clear indication that gender is significant and not arbitrary in God’s design. It is fundamental. The relationship between men and women is something that Satan, the dragon, constantly seeks to destroy and divide. The differences between men and women are not made to be fundamentally oppressive, but complementary. It is only together that they show the full picture of what it means to be human.
Unfortunately, we find an increasingly intense war between the sexes in our society today. There are plenty of attacks from men against women and vice-versa. We also see confusion about what it means to be a man, and what it means to be a woman.
During a time of great confusion and frustration on the part of many men and women regarding the issue of gender, it is important to look more deeply at the Solemnity of the Assumption. There is not only a King in heaven, but also a Queen. We do not have only a man in heaven but also a woman, both body and soul.
Our response can only be an increase in devotion and trust to Our Mother, who with Jesus desires our presence in Heaven. Perhaps the way to receive the contemplative richness of this celebration is to meditate on the 4th Glorious Mystery of the Holy Rosary, the Assumption. Through it we can reflect on the marvelous plan of God, who redeemed all of humanity in a perfectly human way: by one man, through one woman.
Homily originally written and given on August 15, 2019.