The Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Magnificat:
"And Mary said,
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever.'"
- St. Luke 1:46-55
Happy St. Mary's Day! Whether you know it as "The Feast of St. Mary the Virgin," "The Dormition of the Theotokos," "The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary," or all of the above, August 15th marks the festal commemoration of the conclusion of Our Lady's earthly life and her reception into Life itself. As the apolytikion (hymn) of this Feast from the Byzantine Rite so poetically expresses, "In birth, you preserved your virginity; in death, you did not abandon the world, O Theotokos ("Mother of God" or literally, "God-bearer"). As mother of Life, you departed to the Source of Life, delivering our souls from death by your intercessions."
While the depth and magnitude of Marian theology is boundless, and some of it "misses the forest for the trees," this beautiful holiday never ceases to remind me of the Magnificat, "Mary's Song," recorded in the first chapter of St. Luke's gospel. This is one of those scriptural prayers that we should all have memorized, if for no other reason than to remind us to live into its prophetic inspiration by the Holy Ghost. Second only to the Lord's Prayer itself, the Magnificat is the New Testament canticle which most succinctly encapsulates the Gospel message itself, proclaiming the fulfillment of the promise of God in the revolutionary upheaval of conventional power structures, the humiliation of the arrogant wealthy, and the exaltation of the humble poor.
What we have in the person and narrative of the Blessed Virgin is the miraculous reality of the Incarnation of Our Lord. Some 2,000 years ago, the Creator of the Universe became a human being in order to redeem the world in the power of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, for the first time enthroning human flesh in Mary's own offspring at the right hand of God the Father. Out of the entire span of natural history, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" at a particular time and place and became incarnate ("enfleshed") in the womb of one particularly chosen woman, the New Eve, the Burning Bush, the Chalice of Immortality, the Ark of the Covenant: a poor first-century Palestinian Jewish girl named Miriam (or "Mary," in English).
With her consent to the will of God, her "fiat," her "yes," this young woman made an oblation of her whole self to become the vessel of the Incarnation of the God-man, Jesus Christ. As another hymn from the Eastern Christian tradition so strikingly puts it, "You were made more spacious than the heavens, O Most Pure Mother, for God cannot be contained by the whole universe, and yet He chose to be contained in your womb for the sake of our salvation."
He whom the heavens themselves could not contain saw fit to be contained within the womb of the Virgin.
From the very beginning of St. Luke's evidently well-researched account of the Good News of Christ Jesus, we step into the narrative of the Virgin Mary and the Annunciation of Our Lord's incarnation in her womb (beautifully intertwined with the conception and birth of St. John the Baptist, the Forerunner of his cousin's Divine message), and following her visitation by the Archangel Gabriel and fellowship with her cousin Elizabeth, also overwhelmed by the Holy Ghost, the new mother of the Messiah, God made flesh from her own DNA, "Magnifies the Lord" with the apocalyptic (revelatory) song of praise we have come to know as The Magnificat. Thus, Luke 1 reveals, among other things, that the reality of the New Covenant of the God of Israel necessitates and sets in motion the scattering of the arrogant, the casting down of the mighty from their thrones, the exaltation of the lowly, the filling of the hungry with good things, and the emptying exile of the rich. This is the Gospel for "the least of these."
So sparse is the record of her infrequently recorded speech that we must acknowledge the unparalleled importance of St. Mary's pronouncements. It is by no coincidence that her longest-recorded quotation is the hymn with which she vocalizes the majesty and glory of the God who makes all things possible, fulfilling the Messianic promise made to Abraham so many generations prior to turn the world upside down, confounding the oppressive power structures of wealth and pridefulness by establishing the Divinely-instituted paradigm of salvation on the foundational principle that "the first shall be last, and the last shall be first," that the poor, oppressed, marginalized, and downtrodden will be exalted and the wealthy ruling class and their arrogant maintenance of systemic oppression will be emptied of their earthly idols and cast aside.
Out of the same lips which would go on to kiss the face of her own son and Creator, the people of God receive from Our Lady the revolutionary message of the gospel of liberation, the Good News of hope for the hopeless and comfort for the needy, all of which is reinforced by the commandments and teachings of her Divine baby boy throughout his earthly ministry. Lovingly regarding her son, Jesus, who would one day preach the famed "Sermon on the Mount," blessing the humble and meek, she instructs us in the way of our salvation, simply stating:
"Do whatever he tells you."
Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Amen.
O God, who hast taken to thyself the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of thy incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of thine eternal kingdom; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.