The feast of the Assumption that we celebrate today means very simply that Our Lady is in heaven. The teaching itself says: ‘At the end of her earthly life, the Immaculate Mother of God, ever Virgin, was taken to Heaven body and soul in heavenly glory.’ It doesn’t say how it happened or when it happened, but just that it did happen and that Mary is now in heaven, in body and soul. It is a way of saying that because of the extraordinary position that Mary was given, by being the Mother of Jesus, she shared in his sufferings and she also shared in his resurrection and so was taken up to heaven at the end of her life.
When the angel Gabriel came and told Mary that God was asking her to become the Mother of Jesus, some of the first words of the angel were: ‘Mary, do not be afraid, you have won God’s favour’(Luke 1:30). What the angel said to Mary, might be summed up in a different way. The angel was essentially saying: ‘Mary, God is asking you to put aside all your plans for the future and do his will instead. Do you accept?’ In a way, this is what the angel was saying to her, but he started it off with ‘Mary do not be afraid.’ ‘God knows what he is doing.’
I am sure Mary had her own plans as to how she would serve God and she was obviously a very holy woman, the greatest saint that ever lived. It seems that she didn’t intend to have children, otherwise why would she have questioned the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know man?’ (Luke 1:34). She was already legally married to Joseph, so it would have been the most normal and expected thing, for her to have children. But God was asking her to put aside her plans and go in a completely different direction. What she was told didn’t make sense and humanly was impossible, but she believed and accepted. ‘Let it be done to me as you have said’ (Luke 1:38).
It would be easy to think that it would have been easier for Mary than for other people, because she was without sin. However, the fact that she was without sin means that she would have been more sensitive to evil and would have suffered more because of it than anyone else. She suffered from the time that the Angel appeared to her and told her that God was asking her to be the mother of God. She was pregnant before she came to live with Joseph in a way that was impossible to explain, or understand from a human point of view. According to Jewish law, to be betrothed to someone meant that you were already married legally, but weren’t yet living with them. So how would Mary explain this to Joseph? The embarrassment, fear and tension there must have been for her. And according to Jewish law a woman could have been stoned to death if she was found to be pregnant outside marriage. Joseph obviously didn’t understand either, since he decided to divorce her and it was only at the last minute that God told him to take Mary as his wife. ‘Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife…’ (Matt 1:20).
The birth of Jesus was in difficult circumstances, definitely not how you want things to be for the birth of your child. They then had to leave their country because of a death threat. Later on Mary and Joseph lost Jesus for three days. Can you imagine the stress of losing your child for three days? And finally the betrayal, arrest, torture and death of Jesus and she could do nothing except watch. But Mary never gave up hope. She continued to believe that God would make sense of it. After the resurrection she stayed with the Apostles and encouraged them as they waited for the gift of the Spirit before Pentecost.
Why did God allow her to suffer so much? He could have made it easier. It seems that suffering has a part to play in our journey to God. ‘Unless you pick up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple’ (Matt 16:24). ‘Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to heaven and only a few find it’ (Matt 7:14). The trials we go through are what help us to grow, what refine us. You don’t grow when you are on vacation and the Lord is always helping us to grow.
No doubt all of us have, or had various ideas as to what we would do with our lives, but often the path we follow goes in directions that we didn’t expect, or don’t want. We usually see these changes as things ‘going wrong,’ disappointments, but in God’s plan that is not the case. Out of every disaster God can bring the greatest good, though we may not recognize it until later on.
Think of the words of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, ‘Our own hope had been that [Jesus] would be the one to set Israel free’ (Luke 24.21). ‘We are so disappointed.’ And Jesus’ response to them was, ‘You foolish men, so slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken’ (Luke 24: 25). They were only able to see the death of a holy man, but it was the event that changed history forever. It is only when we get to heaven that we will see how all the difficult parts of our lives had a part to play and usually a very important part to play.
‘Mary, do not be afraid. You have found favor with God.’
‘Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.’
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