Feast of the Assumption of Mary - August 15


On this day, August 15, the Catholic Church celebrates the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven, after she fell asleep at the end of her life. The belief that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven is an ancient belief among Christian faithful who had  always stressed the fact that Mary was born, lived and fell asleep without sin and thus did not suffer corruption. However, this belief was only defined as a fundamental essential of the faith in 1950. Here we publish a short homily of Father David Neuhaus in honor of the feast.

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Coptic icon of the Assumption

The reading from the Gospel on this day includes the canticle of Mary, the Magnificat, which she sang while visiting her relative Elizabeth, the future mother of John the Baptist, in one of the villages of the Judean hills (according to tradition Ein Karem)(cf. Luke 1:39-56). I am struck today by the revolutionary character of the canticle and I refer specifically to the verses:

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly; 

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy...

Mary, the simple girl from a forgotten village, not very learned, who is carrying Jesus, Israel's Messiah in her womb, sees things that I have difficulty seeing. When I read the morning newspaper, I have the feeling that the powerful are ever more powerful, that the rich are ever richer, that the lowly are ever more humiliated and that the hungry are ever more desirous of a morsel of bread. I tend to repeat to myself that brute force and only brute force determines facts in our world. I tend to sum up the situation in the words of the sage Qohelet: "there is nothing new under the sun" - not only that there is nothing new but that there also can not possibly be anything new under the sun... the world will remain always the same.


Mary succeeds in seeing reality beyond the facts in the here and now. Of course, we need to stress that she is not the first to do this but rather she is echoing the vision of the prophets of Israel. One of the essential elements of the prophetic imagination is the ability to see newness, surprise, what changes the world. "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth" writes Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah 65:17). Only God can create something new because God is not under the sun. Not only can God do something new but God will do something new because God is faithful always to those God loves. In this Mary is a prophet. It is not coincidental that she bears the name "Mary", the name of the sister of Moses, the prophetess. It is not coincidental that her canticle echoes the canticle of Moses... God has indeed cast Pharaoh's horse and rider into the sea. God will be victorious over the forces of evil in the world. This is the faith of the prophets and this is the faith of Mary too.


It should be underlined that this faith is not just up in the clouds. God has already acted in the past and remembering God's actions strengthens the faith that God will act likewise in the future. When God brought God's people out of Egypt, God was victorious over the powerful and the rich and lifted up the lowly and the hungry. In her song, Mary, like the prophets of Israel, links the past, in which God is revealed in God's actions, with the future, in which God's promises will be fulfilled.


And what about today's celebration? Some have asked why did the Pope only proclaim Mary's Assumption into heaven as a fundamental of faith in 1950. Perhaps part of the explanation is the context. Five years after the powerful and forceful had burnt the bodies of their victims in the ovens of the death camps, the Catholic Church sought to remind the world that Mary (daughter of Israel) was assumed into heaven not just in spirit but in body. That the body is a temple of the spirit and thus constitutes a sacred place for the meeting between God and the human person. Perhaps in this, the Church fulfilled a prophetic role, following Mary, and opposed a society that destroys the body and the life therein, developing an entire industry to do this.


On this feast day, let us pray that the community of faithful might always fulfill its prophetic role, as did Mary and the prophets who preceded her.


T.T. from the Haifa community has proposed some music to meditate on the feast:


- A musical meditation - Gregorian chant

View and listen


- A musical meditation in Italian - Magnificat

View and listen



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