Feast of the Assumption of Mary 2021
And God said: “Let there be light. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night.”
“And a great portent appeared in the heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet”
Today we celebrate the fulfillment of both of these texts from Scripture. In the first, we see the original creation of earth, along with the Garden of Eden where the first humans were created and lived. And in the second we see the new creation which tales place following the death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ – the Son of God and the son of Mary.
Adam and Eve failed the test which was given to them. Through the instigation of Satan. they thought that they could be like unto God by their own making. But because of this, they were cast out of Eden. They realized that they were naked. And they hid themselves.
But in His Love for His creation, God sought them out and called them by name: “Adam, where are you?” God cast them out of Eden and told them that they would live in pain and labor to obtain the necessities of life. But He also promised that He would send a Savior -His own beloved Son – born of a virgin – who would offer Himself to save all peoples.
And so today we celebrate the completion of that promise. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, stands as the great light to show us how to share in the new creation. In this new creation all will truly be like unto God – but not of their own making. It will be as a result of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to show us how we can be like unto God – not by our own doing, but by following the example of Mary who proclaims in the Gospel today that “He has looked upon my nothingness”.
It was because Mary gloried only in her nothingness that she became the first recipient of being the true daughter of God as well as the Mother of God. And Jesus shows us through His own message and example that it is in facing and accepting our own nothingness that we will find our true greatness.
Paul tells us in the second reading today that the conclusion will come when Christ delivers the kingdom to the Father. Then we will all share in the new creation, singled by the woman clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet. This kingdom is open to all who can likewise accept their own nothingness in order to allow God to be “all in all”.
Jesus told His disciples that “I go to prepare a place for you”. In His Ascension and now in the Assumption of His Mother, He prepares that new creation “ a new heaven and a new earth” – a new Garden of Eden, where the devil cannot enter, but where all realize both their own nothingness and their own greatness as children of God.
It is to this new creation that we are called. But we enter it not by our own merit, but solely by the merit of Jesus Christ, following in the example of Mary, the Mother of God and our own Mother. This new creation has been prepared by Jesus Christ. In this “new heaven and new earth” we will rejoice forever in the great bounty of our heavenly Father. But in His Love for us, He desires that we share in that even now through this Mystery of Faith that we celebrate. Here we share in that new creation given us through the bounty of our heavenly Father. In this Eucharist we share in the dying and rising of Jesus Christ but we also proclaim “Lord, I am not worthy”. Our littleness and poverty become our hope of glory.