Mary: A Model of One Who Surrenders to God, her Savior and Lord

 Today we celebrate the Assumption of our Blessed Mother into heaven!  Mary is the Immaculate Conception, that is the one person conceived without sin, the mother of God Incarnate, Jesus, the Son of God man.  Mary, before her birth, was fully redeemed, that is without the wound of sin that we all inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve.  Mary is the new Eve, as Jesus is the new Adam. In today's second reading, Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15: 20-27, Paul reminds the Corinthians and us, that "Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through man, the resurrection of the dead came also through man. [And,] just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life...."  Mary was assumed into heaven body and soul.  Her immaculate body was not subject to corruption and did not return to dust, as ours will after we die! 

In the Collect of today's Mass, we pray:  "Almighty ever-living God, who assumed the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of your Son, body and soul into heavenly glory, grant, we pray, that, always attentive to the things that are above, we may merit to be sharers of her glory."  Mary was always attentive to the things that are above, that is, to carrying out God's will for her, nurturing, caring, supporting her son Jesus, the Incarnate God! She taught Jesus  how to surrender to God's will, as she did, when, at the Annunciation, she said: "Nothing is impossible for God; let it be done to me according to your word." And Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and the child that she was to conceive in  her womb was the Son of God, the One of whom it says in today's first reading, Revelation 11: 10ab: "Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed One."

Jesus, like His mother, carried out the will of His Father in all things, even saying in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Not my will but yours be done," as He agonized over His impending death following Judas' betrayal of Him to his enemies.

How attentive are you, am I, to God's will as it reveals itself in the events and the people in our lives?  How aware are we that the Holy Spirit, as in the case of Mary, overshadows us and brings God's gifts to us, making us fruitful and givers of life to others?

Being Brought to Perfection by and in Christ Jesus

Oh, the richness of the readings of today’s liturgy and the great love of our God for each one of us.  In the first reading, Acts 22: 30; 23: 6-11,  the Lord says to Paul, who has encountered all kinds of problems in his ministry, “Take courage. For just as you have borne witness to my cause in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness in Rome.”  The Lord asks us also to “take courage.” We are to be His witnesses right where we are this moment, this day, this week at work and at home, in our parishes and our schools, with our children and grandchildren, with our spouses and co-workers and with our neighbors around the world.

In the responsorial psalm of today’s Mass, Psalm 16, we say to the Lord: “My Lord are you. O Lord, my allotted portion and cup, you it is who counsels me; …I set the Lord ever before me; with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.”  The Lord is my cup and yours. He fills it and He empties it! Fills it with love; empties it of hatred and prejudice. Fills it with meekness and empties it of anger. Fills it with joy and empties it of sadness, envy and jealousy. Fills it with humility and empties it of pride and arrogance. Fills it with courage and empties it of fear! Fills it with truth and empties it of deceit. Fills it with generosity and empties it of selfishness and on and on and on!

God is a generous God and an initiator. When He sees that my cup, or yours,  is empty, He is there to fill it.  Why?  Jesus gives us the reason in His last discourse to the apostles at the Last Supper and related in today’s Gospel, John 17: 20-26: “…I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as  we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.”

How aware am I, are you, that God is filling and emptying your cup?