The Assumption of Our Lady

CELEBRATING HUMAN LIFE AND DIGNITY

Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab; 1 Corinthians 15:20-27; Luke 1:39-56

Readings for the Solemnity of the Assumption

I came across a book “A Child Called It”. It is the autobiography of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his mother. She considered him not a son, but a slave; not a boy, but an “it”. Dave’s clothes were torn rags; his food was spoiled scraps that dogs refused to eat. He had no one to whom he could turn; his dreams kept him alive – dreams of someone loving and caring for him, of being treated as a human being. 

The story of David Pelzer is the story of many. The book’s publisher, Trevor Dolby, said: “We get ten letters a day from people saying the book mirrors their childhood.” 

The story of David Pelzer is the story of our world. We seem closer to one another than ever before. In fact, we live in “anonymous proximity” in a depersonalised society; we treat one another as “its”.

It is this context of a depersonalized society that we celebrate this Solemnity of Mary’s Assumption and our Independence Day.

The Assumption means that Mary already experiences the union of glorified body and soul; she already shares in Christ’s resurrection. It points to and anticipates a gift to all believers. We too will one day share in Christ’s resurrection as complete persons.

Perhaps more important than the “what” of the Assumption is the “why” of the declaration of the dogma. In the declaration, Pope Pius XII stated that the previous fifty years had seen the loss of several million lives in the Armenian genocide, the two World Wars and the Holocaust, and the Russian Revolution. He deplored the destruction of human life, the desecration of human bodies, and the loss of reverence for the God-given identity of every human being, and intended “that the celebration of the Assumption of Mary might make clear the sacredness and the high destiny of every single human person.”

The horror of the last century is not over: violence and terror attacks; communalism and caste discrimination; oppression of the poor and the weak; racial profiling and hate crimes; women and children being raped – we hardly treat human beings as persons. 

We need this solemnity, which “makes clear the sacredness and the high destiny of every single human person,” more than ever before.

Our celebration of the Solemnity of the Assumption is a challenge and an invitation to treat every human being with respect and dignity. When we can do that, we can call ourselves free!