MARY'S ASSUMPTION AND THE NATION

ASSUMPTION OF THE NATION

BODY VIRGINAL

In November 1950 Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary into heaven as a dogma of the Catholic Faith, deriving from the Church’s contemplation of Mary’s divine motherhood and intimate association with Jesus Christ in the mystery of his life, death and exaltation. Her surrender to God’s will was so complete that her Son pointed her body in the direction of his own Resurrection. As it was fitting that the Mother of the Incarnate Word should be completely without sin  -  “Immaculate Conception”  - so it was equally fitting that her body be preserved from corruption. With the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception, the dogma of the Assumption was already hovering in the wings. In speaking about the Blessed Virgin Mary we should be sparing in the use of superlatives, as though the example of her life were an unattainable ideal. Artistic interpretations of the Assumption tend to give an impression of the remoteness of an idyllic parable of the Virgin being swept up to an ethereal world far removed from human concerns. The truth of the matter is that we cannot understand Mary except within the whole picture of  salvation, which connects her destiny with that of her Son and of ours. From the cradle to the Cross Mary was intimately involved in the drama of redemption. “Drama” may well be a large word and fail to convey the grimy drabness of daily living and the dreariness of dying.

BODY ECCLESIAL

Mary is now more personally present to the Church and to men and women than during her earthly life, not as an alabaster-type Madonna but a woman of strength, inured to suffering by knowing what it felt like to be a displaced person and to experience the violent loss of a well-beloved son. How many today have not felt the same ? The shaky faith of the disciples may well have crumbled without her just being there with them. Indeed, her mother love was extended to all the world, not in a moment of ecstatic joy but at the time of her deepest pain on Calvary. It is hardly consistent that after Jesus gave her to us as our Mother she should remain up and away in glory while her children are even today being torn apart by violence and moral suicide, or that she should be unconcerned at the sensual cult of the body, that measures progress by the success in avoiding pain and putting off death, and marked by the mad scramble for the best places in this life and an alarming reluctance to leave it.

BODY PERSONAL

Mary’s Assumption tells us what God can do with our bodies. As the highest value of all material goods, physical life is the basic condition for well-being and development. This is achieved when the components of  the human organism work in harmony. The human body is meant for enjoyment, lawful pleasure, to be touched and held, caressed, celebrated and given over in self-surrendering love and service. For all its excellence in itself, the body is mysterious, “for the body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body” (1 Cor 6, 13). We have our bodies and yet we don’t. We are our bodies and yet we are not. If the body is meant for the Lord and the Lord for the body, it must surely point to a certain consummation. Must all the accumulated excellence of the body come to naught ? Mary’s Assumption says, “no.”  So here is mystery calling for reverence of the unknown, proper use of the known, and the recognition of other-worldly fulfilment.

BODY POLITIC

As Christians and as a nation we need to consider the prospect that whatever happened to Jesus and Mary must also happen to us, but only in the measure of our humble obedience to God. “We rise by self-abasement” (Cardinal J. H. Newman). The Bible teaches that man and woman are made to “the image and likeness of God”. This is a great gift, indeed. But it also is a task, since “the image and likeness of God” is not a static endowment but a gift with a dynamic purpose and intent. As surely as God entered the portals of  humanity, the Indian nation must acquiesce in the incarnational mystery of its assumption to Jesus Christ who is as broad as creation and as transcendent as heaven. The grace of the Incarnation is the patrimony of every human being claiming the name of man. Every man and woman bears the mystery of Christ in their heart. This is what constitutes their call to holiness within their historico-political situation, which they answer by a life of self-effacing charity and justice. “He (the Word of God) assures all who trust in the charity of God that the way of love is open to all men and that the efforts to establish a universal brotherhood will not be in vain” (Vatican II, G S 38). Indeed, “Christ is now at work in the hearts of men” (ibid.).

 There is a special power in certain past events, like the Freedom struggle, that no measure of temporal passage can erase. The energy released from such events continues to activate the human community and to influence the conditions of political decisions. This power is gathered up and personalised in Jesus Christ, the source and sustainer of such power, since his own paschal event is the résumé of all events, before and after. Those who submit with him in the cause of justice leave their mark on the nation’s history and have their names writ indelible in the Book of the Lamb.