On 1 November 1950, Pope Pius XII promulgated the dogma: “The immaculate Mother of God, always virgin, at the end of the earthly life, was assumed to the heavenly glory in soul and body.”
“Heavenly glory” is not a place but the new condition where Mary has entered upon concluding her pilgrimage in this world, and has begun for her the glory in the world of God. She has not abandoned the community of the disciples. She simply changed the way of being with them, just as it happened to her son on the Easter day.
Mary is no longer conditioned to the limitations of space and time. Therefore, she is always and everywhere near to the believing community.
Mary, the Mother of the Church remains close to each one of us, anywhere and at any time. In the account of the Acts of the Apostles, when Jesus entered into the glory of the Father, the disciples returned to Jerusalem joyful and happy, not because Jesus is gone, but because Jesus is now in a condition in which he is always close and always in the midst of the community of his disciples.
What has happened to Christ has happened to Mary. And so happens also with every believer who enters the world of God when we finish our pilgrimage on earth. Every child of God, at the time of death, is immediately received with the whole of his or her person and with all his or her history enters the world of God.
In our world, we are faced in a dramatic duel between the forces of life and the forces of death. In the end, this struggle becomes unequal and death always catches its prey. Then we ask ourselves: If God is a lover of life, why does he remain passive to this defeat of the creatures that have his image imprinted in their faces? And the answer is presented to us today in Mary.
On this feast day, Mary is marked as one who represents the destiny of those who believe in the fulfilment of the Word of the Lord. We hear her cry of joy: “The Almighty has done great things for me.” This expression: “great things” is used in the bible to present the extraordinary interventions of God, the only one who is able to defeat death.
The song of Mary goes on to mention seven interventions of God in love with the life of man. “He has shown the strength of his arm”—only his arm could bring down that monster that is death. “He has scattered the arrogant”—the arrogant are those who look at others from top to bottom and create a world of death. The God of life disperses them, makes them disappear. He “Brings down the mighty from the throne and lifts up the humble.” He “Fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty.” It is not a threat of punishment; it is the proclamation of salvation.
The ancient world, the realm of death is reduced to nothingness. The Lord’s powerful arm has created a new world in which every form of death is eliminated.
Father Fernando Torres CMF
www.ciudadredonda.org
Translated by Father Alberto Rossa CMF
