Homily for the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary
Few objects in the ancient world carried more meaning, or more mystery, than the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was built at Mount Sinai at God's own command after the escape from Egypt. This gold-covered chest held the tablets of the Law, and was carried before Israel as the sign of God's presence among his people. Later, when the Temple in Jerusalem was built it enshrined in the Holy of Holies. It was so sacred that only the high priest could approach it, and only once a year. Even today it captures our imagination: the classic 1981 film, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark is built entirely on the idea of a relic so holy and so dangerous that it can destroy anyone unworthy who dares to open it.
David Brings the Ark to Jerusalem in Triumph
During the time of King David, the Philistines captured the Ark, and David set out to retrieve it from the household of Obed-edom in the hill country of Judah. The Second Book of Samuel tells us that, after asking, 'How is it that the Ark of the Lord should come to me?', David brought it up into Jerusalem in triumph, dancing before it with all his might as the whole of Israel shouted for joy. Keep that story in mind as we turn to today's Gospel. St Luke tells us that Mary, newly pregnant, "set out and travelled to the hill country... of Judah", to visit her cousin Elizabeth. When she arrives, Elizabeth cries out, "How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?", an echo, almost word for word, of David's own question about the ark. Elizabeth's unborn child leaps within her, just as David once leapt for joy before the Ark. And St Luke tells us that Mary "stayed with her about three months", the very same length of time the Ark once rested, and blessed, the household of Obed-edom. The parallels are too exact to be accidental. St Luke wants us to recognise Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant, carrying the Lord himself into the hill country of Judah, provoking not fear but joy, blessing, and leaping for gladness.
Today is the patronal feast of the Church here in Southern Africa. We are under Mary's protection. The Church teaches that at the end of her earthly life she was taken up body and soul into heaven. So it is worth asking, on this feast especially: what is Mary, through her life and her Assumption, saying to us? Today's readings and the Church's faith hold up three portraits of Mary: Mary the heavenly woman, Mary the first fruits of the redeemed, and Mary the woman of discipleship - the new ark who carries Christ to others.
A Woman Adorned with the Sun
The first reading, from the Book of the Apocalypse, gives us an extraordinary vision. John tells us that God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen within it. But instead of describing the ark itself, John describes "a woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with twelve stars on her head for a crown." Here is that same ark again, but now enthroned in glory. The ark of the old covenant gives way to a new ark: a woman who carries God himself within her, and who now shares fully in his glory. This woman is caught up in a great cosmic drama. A huge red dragon appears, waiting to devour her child the moment he is born, but the child "is caught up to God and to his throne," and a voice in heaven proclaims that salvation and the kingdom of God have come. This is Mary seen from the perspective of eternity: the woman at the centre of the struggle between good and evil, whose son is the victor, and who already shares in his victory. She shows us that Christ has already won this victory for us: our own struggles, against sin, against injustice, against everything that threatens to overwhelm us, are already decided in our favour.
The second reading turns from the vision of heaven to the logic of our faith. St Paul tells the Corinthians that "Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." St Paul uses the image of the first sheaf of wheat brought to the Temple, as a pledge of the harvest still to come. Christ's resurrection is not an isolated event; it is the guarantee of a harvest still to be gathered in. If Christ is the first fruits of that harvest, then Mary is its earliest gathering. She is the first human being, flesh and blood like ours, to be fully caught up into the resurrection life that Christ won for us. Where the first fruits go, the rest of the harvest is sure to follow. Mary, assumed body and soul into heaven, is the pledge and the pattern of what awaits every one of us who belongs to Christ. This is why the Church has never treated the Assumption as simply a private privilege reserved for Mary alone; it is a preview of our own destiny. We are not souls who will one day float free of our bodies. We are body and soul together, and it is the whole of us that Christ intends to raise up, just as he has raised his mother. What has happened to her will one day happen to us. We were made for more than the grave.
An Ark Does Not Exist for Its Own Sake
The Gospel gives us the third portrait, and after that opening image of David and the ark, its meaning is already coming into focus. As soon as Mary receives the news of the angel, she does not linger over the extraordinary grace she has just received. She sets out in haste, at some discomfort and no small risk, to serve her elderly cousin, carrying within her the true ark of God's presence. There is an especially beautiful consequence of this image for our faith. An ark does not exist for its own sake; it exists to carry something greater than itself, and is honoured only because of what it carries. So it is with Mary: she does not point to herself, but beyond herself, to Christ. She is the new ark precisely because she bears the Lord within her, and every grace we admire in her, her glory, her haste, her Assumption which we celebrate today, is in service of that one great fact: God has come to dwell among us, and Mary carried him here.
Mary herself does not dwell on this extraordinary identity for its own sake. She turns the moment toward God, breaking into the song we call the Magnificat: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord... for the Almighty has done great things for me." She is, as Elizabeth says, blessed because she believed that the promise made to her by the Lord would be fulfilled. Mary is the model disciple. She is the woman who hears the word of God and puts it into practice. This portrait says to us that the glory of the heavenly woman and the hope of the first fruits are not given to Mary as a reward for passivity; they flow from a whole life of faith lived out in humble, active service, carrying Christ to others the way she carried him to Elizabeth. If we want to share in the destiny Mary already enjoys, we cannot simply admire her from a distance. We have to imitate her: hearing God's word, believing his promises even when we cannot see how they will be fulfilled, and carrying Christ with us, in haste if necessary, toward the needs of others.
Three portraits, but really one woman, and one message: that a human life, given over in faith to God, ends not in the grave but in glory. Mary, the new Ark has gone before us, as our patroness and our mother. Where she has gone, she calls us to follow. Let us ask her intercession today, that our own lives, and the whole Church here in Southern Africa, might imitate her faith, her service and her hope, now and at the hour of our death.
