The Assumption or Dormition of Mary Reveals the Meaning of the Christian Life

On August 15 in the Western Church Liturgical Calendar, we celebrate the great Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Most of our Eastern Christian brethren also acknowledge the same great event on this Feast, calling it the Dormition of the Mother of God. Some join us in the celebration today and others, following another ancient Christian calendar, commemorate in just a few days. The Feast is ancient (5^th century) and of profound importance – for reasons which sometimes are not fully understood.

By Deacon Keith Fournier, JD, MTS, MPhil

This event is a part of the naturally supernatural progression in the life of the Blessed Virgin of Nazareth. Her Yes, her Fiat of surrendered love, brought heaven to earth. This exercise of her human freedom, responding to the invitation of God, sent through an angel, to be the Mother of the Lord, forever changed human history. It opened her up to the glory of heaven. That glory not only came to dwell within her, but later received her, body and soul, into heaven.

Mary is thus the sign and promise of the Church’s future. She also provides the pattern of the Christian life and vocation. All who say Yes to her beloved Son – and live their lives in that kind of surrendered love – bear Jesus Christ for the world. They are joined with Mary now and will join with her in the fullness of that communion of love which she now enjoys in eternity.

“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” In those few words, all of human history was changed. As we make those words our own, our own histories begin to change as well. The Angel proclaimed that Mary was full of grace, filled with the very life and presence of God. She walked in a deep, abiding and intimate relationship with God. He was with her before she even responded to His invitation. God chose Mary, even before Mary chose God. This order is vitally important.

Mary’s Prayer, her Fiat (Latin, let it be done) was a response to the visitation from the messenger of heaven, the angel. It also provides a pattern of prayer for every Christian. It unfolds into a life of praise, her ‘Magnificat.’ This canticle begins with the words in Latin ‘Magnificat anima mea Dominum’ (‘My soul magnifies the Lord’) and is the Gospel text for the Liturgy during the day on this Feast. (Luke 1:46-55).

The Fiat is more than a prayer and the Magnificat more than a hymn of praise. Together they constitute a lesson book, a guide, for our own lives. This lesson book is desperately needed by contemporary Christians, indeed all people of faith and good will, in an age characterized by pride and arrogance, deluded by self-worship and imprisoned by the idolatry it produces.

The pattern of the life of Mary, the first disciple of the Lord, reveals a trajectory of surrendered love. If we embrace the mystery of Mary, we will find the meaning of our own lives. We were created out of Love, in Love and for Love. As the beloved disciple John, who stood with her at the Tree of the Cross, reminds us in his first letter, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 Jn 4:16)

Mary said Yes to the invitation to participate in the communion of God’s love. She confronted her own fears and entered into a new way of living; so must we. Christians use the word mystery in a manner quite different than the contemporary west perceives the word. Christian ‘mysteries’ are not puzzles to be solved, but gifts to be received, in faith.

The Greek word mysterion (later translated sacramentum in Latin) is still the preferred word used for the Sacraments in the Eastern Church. They are mysteries of our faith. It is in that light that Mary is also viewed as a mystery; she reveals the very heart of that faith and its inner dynamic. She also teaches us the meaning of our own lives. Like her, we are invited into communion with the Trinitarian God, in and through Jesus Christ. She shows us the way.

Mary lived a life of receiving and giving and giving and receiving. She has been called from the early centuries the God-bearer or Mother of God (which in Greek is Theo-tokos). She brought forth the Word of God. Her Fiat, her humble surrender, led to her Magnificat. Thus she becomes a prototype, showing us the vocation of every human person.

Her response reveals the meaning of life itself. Of all of our lives. We were made to give ourselves away to the Lord who has given Himself to us in a Holy exchange. He comes and abides within us. Through Baptism we enter into a new way of living in His Body, the Church. Living in that Church we are called to continue His redemptive mission by giving ourselves in Him for the sake of the world. An early father of the undivided Christian Church, Gregory of Nyssa, once wrote:

“What came about in bodily form in Mary, the fullness of the godhead shining through Christ in the Blessed Virgin, takes place in a similar way in every soul that has been made pure. The Lord does not come in bodily form, for ‘we no longer know Christ according to the flesh’, but He dwells in us spiritually and the father takes up His abode with Him, the Gospel tells us. In this way the child Jesus is born in each of us.”

When Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, she bore within her the Incarnate Word of God as a living tabernacle of love. (Luke 1:38-45) Jesus, the Redeemer in the womb, was already saving the world and Mary, his chosen mother, was already His first disciple. This little Virgin from Nazareth not only experienced the great miracle but became herself a vehicle of grace for others.

Is it any wonder that the early Christians painted her image in the catacombs during their moments of fear, persecution, and doubt? They found great inspiration from this little woman of great faith. In her yes, they came to understand that ordinary people can change human history. They were inspired to add their own yes, their own fiat to hers.

Justin Martyr and many other early Christian apologists found in her fiat, her obedient Yes to the invitation angel, the undoing of the no – I will not serve – given by the first woman Eve. In one of her very first titles, they called Mary The Second Eve, the mother of the new creation.

In her womb she carried the One whom the biblical authors would call the New Adam. He was born from her as the first born of a new race of men and women who would find a new birth and a new of living and dying, and living again, through His Incarnation, Nativity, Life, Death and Resurrection.

That same Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, now resides within – and lives His Risen Life through – all those who respond to the invitation of Love, as Mary did. Mary’s choice, her response to the invitation of a God who always respects human freedom, is a singularly extraordinary event in all of human history because it changed history forever. However, it is more.

It is an invitation to each one of us to explore our own personal histories and to write them anew in Jesus Christ. Mary is a mirror, a reflection, of Some-One, Jesus Christ, her Beloved Son, the Eternal Word from the Father who became the Incarnate Word within her. The Savior whom she was privileged to bear for the sake of the world filled her with His grace.

Each one of us, now baptized into Him, is also called, in a sense, to become full of grace. We are invited to empty ourselves and be filled with the very life of God. The Lord desires to come and take up residence within us and be borne into a world that hungers for His love. Mary shows us the way. She heard the promise, believed, was filled with grace, and conceived the Lord who is Love incarnate.

We can do likewise if we learn to pray, to listen, to hear, and to respond with our own Yes, living our lives in surrendered love. Many years ago, I wrote a small book of reflections to help other Christians, who are not Catholic or Orthodox, discover this meaning and gift of Mary. It is entitled The Prayer of Mary, Living the Surrendered Life.