OMELIE / Omelie EN

15 ago 2024

15/08/2024 – The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

15/08/2024 – The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Reading 1 REV 11,19;12,1-6.10; Psalm 44 Reading 2 1COR 15,20-26 Gospel LK 1,39-56

“The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold”: this is what we sing alongside the Psalm. Among the Jews, the title of queen was reserved for the mother of the king. The King of God’s kingdom is Jesus. His mother, the virgin Mary, today is carried alongside Him. Here she continues her mission of being a mother, she carries on loving all those who are part of the mystery of her Son. Mary has received from God since she was young the mission of being a mother: when her task towards her only Son was over, she started it towards His disciples; now that she herself leaves her life on earth, she continues her task of reaching all men with God’s love. Where she is venerated are not convening Christians only, but also Muslims, Hindus, Animists, everyone with trust and joy. It is from a Muslim woman I heard coming a beautiful expression addressed to Mary: «You are the most beautiful mother of them all»! Not everyone know she has been brought “body and soul” into God’s glory, but everyone believe she is alive and present before Him.

We know she has fully taken part in accepting the Father’s will when she said her “here I am”, as the Son had said from eternity; then she has taken part in the Son’s incarnation, living the same life with Him, eating for Him and making Him live through her own blood; then she has served Him with maternal love in every physical and affective need of His; she has shared, according to her own ability, His mission, starting from Canaan, to Caparnaeum and along the roads of Galilee up to Jerusalem, to the the Calvary. Now we rejoice in seeing that her special proximity to the Son has not ended nor has diminished, but it carries on, still to our advantage. It is certainly useful for us, but above all enjoyable to us, hearing again the words of her prayer with which she answered Elizabeth’s greeting, who was declaring her blessed among all women and blessed because of her faith in God’s promises. Mary did not stop to consider her own merits, but turned her gaze and her relative’s to God, to His greatness. God is so much greater the more He bends down to acknowledge our smallness: “He has looked with favor on his lowly servant”.

It is only by God’s merit that Mary enjoys the bliss of the righteous, because He is the one who has done “great things” in her. What God has done in her gives joy to all generations across the centuries, despite the fact that the so-called great on earth cannot even imagine it, even less share it. Mary, by praying, wants to help us avert our desires from the greatness celebrated by the world, because they are great things which can only make people suffer because of their false promises. In fact, those who have great ambitions are thrown out, those who have great wealth will be left empty-handed and those who think they are great will end up generally forgotten. God has His own plans, and these are the ones which should be followed by men too, by us too. Mary has made herself available, by believing. She has believed without seeing, so God could «use» her for His greatest marvel, to give flesh and the shape of a human being, among men, to His eternal Son. She truly is a great sign appeared in the sky. The Revelations describes that sign as “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars…with child”, while she is about to give birth. It is not necessary to think of Mary, nay, it is way easier to think of the Church dressed in the baptismal garments giving birth over and over again among every people to the presence of God’s Son, and for this she is contradicted and persecuted like Him. But in the Church who could be the most representative person but Mary? Who more than her has listened to the Son, who more than her has incarnated the Father’s Word? What we say of the Church we can certainly say of Mary: she is the first member of the Church and she is her representative. She is the “great sign” of God’s great love for the men.

The Church is “clothed with the sun”: since the moment in which she was immersed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, her garments are shining, revealing God. But in the Church only Mary has preserved intact the splendour of the obedient love. That Woman is Mary in the Church!

The moon, with its changing nature, is “under her feet”: the Woman is not influenced by the events which pass, the events which the powerful, the arrogant and the rich (see LK 1,51-53) delude themselves into thinking they can use to their advantage. She prevents them with warnings, accompanies them with consolations. That Woman is Mary, who loves everyone with the love the Church reaches all peoples with.

The stars arranged around her head as a royal crown reveal her authority. Mary, true queen loved by the King, is advising us to always obey her Son, always do what He tells us to do. That Son now talks to the world through the Church, made minister of His Word and heir of His Spirit.

Mary continues to be at the centre of the Church, to teach her how to give birth to the Child (Rev 12,2.5), saviour of the world. It is the queen we love and from whom we learn how to love the King, our Lord!