Given Mary’s special relationship with Christ, her passing and glorification are entirely exceptional and are in fact an example of the history of salvation. After the dogma of the Assumption was defined by Pius XII in 1950, the liturgy of this solemnity was restructured to adequately express the mystery of Mary’s glorification. The liturgical reform of Vatican II reworked the texts and added a formula for the evening Mass on the eve of the feast. The Mass on the feast day largely retained the texts of 1950, but the non-Gospel readings and the proper preface are entirely new.
Eucology of the missal: the sign (= mystery) of the solemnity is developed above all in the preface, which, largely inspired by the Constitution Lumen Gentium (n. 68), offers a beautiful synthesis of the Christological and ecclesial meaning of the Marian celebration: the Mother of God raised to heaven, whose body had not known corruption, has become the image of the Church…fulfilment of the mystery of salvation… sign of consolation and sure hope for the pilgrim people of God on earth.
Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab: Mary and the people of God are seen together. In fact, the dragon’s fight against the woman and her son is a representation of the battle between the Church and the kingdom of evil. We are in the period of the second persecution, unleashed by the Roman emperors against Christians considered atheists and therefore guilty of death because they did not observe the rules imposed by the emperor on all religions considered as such. Of course, the Church will win this epic battle because the Holy Spirit leads her.
In the second reading, 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, Paul proclaims that Christ is risen as the first fruits of those who sleep. The resurrection of Christ is the foundation of the resurrection of those who belong to Christ, and therefore first and foremost of his mother: she, who more than any other creature belongs to Christ, already shares in the glory of the Son.
Finally, in the Gospel text, taken from the Gospel of Luke, we read not only the first part of the Magnificat as written in the Tridentine Missal, which only quotes a part of it, but the entire Marian canticle (Lk 1:39-56). In this passage, we read of the joyful hope of the Church that she too is destined to share in the same glorification granted in advance to the mother of Jesus.
The biblical reading of the Office of Readings (Eph 1:16-2:10) announces the participation of Christians in Christ’s triumph over death. The short readings of Morning Praise and Vespers develop the same theme. The patristic reading gathers, through the dogmatic constitution Munificentissimus Deus of Pius XII (1950), the testimony of the faith of the Fathers of the Eastern Churches in the Assumption of Mary.
The solemnity of Mary’s Assumption into heaven leads us to reflect on the most important point of Christian life: to your faithful, O Lord, life is not taken away but transformed (cf. Preface I of the Mass for the Dead).
In fact, a Christian must be certain that at the end of earthly life he will find himself before the Father, who loves him with gratuitous love.
When we say that Mary is in heaven, virgin in body and soul, we mean to affirm that in heaven there is the same person who lived in Nazareth with Joseph and Jesus, not some undefined spiritual entity. This concept is fundamental because it confirms that we will go to heaven, we will be the same people who lived on this earth and not some kind of spiritual ghosts: we will be ourselves and we will recognise each other! Think how wonderful that will be! We will live the life of God without problems. In heaven there are no problems, but everything will be beautiful and revealed. Neither our faults nor those of others will remain.
The term ‘body’ was introduced to clarify the presence we will have in glory. Unlike the pagan world, which worshipped gods who were not men and shared nothing of our lives, often mocking humanity, the Christian God is the father of all, loves all and freely chose to share human life with us.
Instead, the Christian God is the father of all, loves all and freely chose to share human life with us.
Therefore, it is essential for every person to encounter the Risen One, to understand that God is the father of all and loves us with gratuitous love. From this we understand that it is necessary to follow the life of Christ and never do the opposite.
F. Giorgio Bontempi CM
