August 15
The
Assumption of
the Blessed Virgin Mary
Gospel: Luke 1:39-56
Today's Gospel: Luke 1:39-56 (Mary Visits
Elizabeth)
During those days Mary set out and traveled to the
hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where
she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When
Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth,
filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud
voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of
your womb. And how does this happen to me, that
the mother of my Lord should come to me? For
at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb
leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the
Lord would be fulfilled.”
Reflection:
That's who the Church lifts up into heaven today,
body and soul, a young woman who said yes and then ran to go be useful. Not
someone who floated above the world. Someone who walked a hill road pregnant,
to go serve a relative who needed her.
The Assumption isn't a fairy tale ending tacked
onto Mary's story. It's a preview of what's coming for the rest of us. Death
doesn't get the last word for anyone who says yes to God the way she did. Her
body wasn't left behind because bodies don't matter; it was taken up because
bodies matter completely. What you do with yours, every act of service, every
yes, every hill you climb for somebody else, none of it is wasted. It's headed
somewhere.
We live in a world that wants to tell you the body is disposable, that faith is
private, that saying yes to God out loud will cost you something. It will. It
cost Mary everything: a sword through the heart, standing at the foot of a
cross to watch her Son die. And heaven still opened for her, not around the
suffering, but through it.
If Mary is Queen of Heaven today, it's because she never once let comfort talk
her out of obedience. She said yes in Nazareth, she said yes, on the road
to Elizabeth, and she said yes at the foot of the cross. Three different kinds
of hard, and she didn't flinch at any of them.
You don't get assumed into heaven by admiring Mary from a distance. You get
there by doing what she did, hearing the word of God and keeping it, then
getting up and going wherever it sends you next.
Mary ran to serve before she ever fully understood what was happening to
her. Are you willing to run before you understand?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
