HOMILY FOR THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.
THEME: THE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES!
BY: Benedict Agbo (Rev Fr)
* Rev 11: 19 – 12: 10, 1 Cor 15: 20 – 26, Lk 1: 39 – 56.
Mary can never be deprived of sharing in the glory of Jesus as his mother. The 1st glory of Mary is the glory of Jesus’ resurrection because the promise made to all believers is that they must share in this glory, 1Jn 3: 2. The 2nd glory of Mary is the glory of Jesus’ Ascension. He must have assured her that she would follow suit before long – a privilege reserved only to special men of God like Prophet Elijah in the Old Testament, 2 Kg 2: 12. The 3rd glory of Mary lies in the Pentecost outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Mary was there fully present, Act 1: 14 and was full of the Holy Spirit, Lk 1 : 29.
The 4th glory of Mary, according to the dogmatic definition of Pope Pius XII in 1950, states that ‘when the course of her earthly life was finished, “the Blessed Virgin Mary was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven”. Unfortunately, this historical event is not contained in the canonized scriptures. Of course, even the whole things that Jesus did could not be contained there, Jn 20: 30 talk more of the speculative stories told about Mary. But other apocryphal gospels like the Protevangelium of St James give us the important information about her early and last days. This is the feast the mother Church celebrates today.
RELATED: HOMILY FOR THE SOLEMNITY OF ASSUMPTION.
The 5th glory of Mary is her coronation in heaven. The book of Revelation (ascribed to John the beloved apostle) did not fail to capture this glorious mystery in the vision of the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. No matter how controversial the exegesis of this passage may be, one can never fail to draw the analogy to Mary the mother of Jesus as we find in today’s 1st reading. We are then told in the 2nd reading from St Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians that the last enemy to be destroyed by the kingdom of God is death. We must recognize from the Genesis account that the leader of this destruction team of heavenly hosts is Mary, the oldest but youngest holy woman mentioned in the scriptures, Gen 3: 15. Today’s gospel says that she is blessed among other women; more blessed than Deborah, Jael, Judith, Ruth, Elizabeth and other blessed women of the scriptures. She said ‘from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed’. Her glory comes from her unparalleled humility. Even as the mother of God, she went to serve her cousin sister Elizabeth, thus excelling every believer born of women in the virtues of both love and faith – Yes, ‘Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was promised her from the Lord’. Happy feast of Assumption!
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