card. Ennio Antonelli
The Assumption is Mary's Easter.
Mair is taken up into heaven. The sky, high, immense, luminous, is a symbol of God and evokes the transcendence, the greatness, the glory of God. To say that Mary is taken up into heaven means that she is welcomed into the immediate presence of God, that she has achieved an experience direct of him and to the beatific vision, which has reached a perfect and eternal union. Mary is introduced into the Trinity, as she appears in many seventeenth-century pictorial representations, where Mary is closer to the Father, the Son and the Spirit than the angels and saints.
Mary is taken up into heaven body and soul, with her whole person, in all her relationships and dimensions. She has achieved total perfection, the fullness of life, the absolute capacity for relationship with God, with others and with things. She has achieved complete bliss and happiness. Like Jesus in his resurrection and ascension to heaven.
The Assumption is therefore Mary's Easter. Saint Paul confirms this, evoking the resurrection of Christ: «Christ is raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died [...] All will receive life in Christ. However, each in his own order: first Christ, who is the firstfruits; then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ" (1 Cor 15, 20. 22-23). Christ has already risen as the first fruits, the foundation of the glorious resurrection of all the righteous. “Those who belong to Christ”, that is, the righteous, will be resurrected in glory at his coming, at the end of history. He does not speak of Mary, who was perhaps still alive on earth. But she is "of Christ" like no other, associated with him in a completely singular way, as Immaculate, Mother, faithful Disciple, participant in the passion, entirely Holy. For this reason, considering her overall figure in the light of faith, the Church was convinced of her Assumption as a singular participation in Christ's Easter. And we rejoice with Mary. Let's party. If we love her, we cannot help but rejoice. Love is suffering with those who suffer and rejoicing with those who are joyful.
Saint Andrew of Crete (7th-8th century), for the feast of the Dormition of Mary, held this homily:
«Whose hands will lay you in the grave, O Mother of God?
What funeral prayer will we do for you?
With what songs will we accompany you?
The grave cannot possess you,
the underworld cannot prevail against you.
So go in peace! Move away from earthly homes!
Make the Lord benevolent towards the creatures of which you are part.
Rejoice with unspeakable joy,
surrounded by eternal light,
where real life is!
In Mary the future of all those who are "of Christ" is also anticipated. She is the exemplary image of the Church, the first fruits of saved humanity. We, however, are still on our way towards the same goal; we are leaning towards the fullness of life, towards happiness.
Our original and constitutive desire is to live and to live as fully as possible. We are always striving towards a "more": with the mind (we always want to know new things), with the heart (once one aspiration is satisfied, another is born), with the hands (when one project is completed, we make another) , with the steps of our feet (always moving towards new experiences). We are always searching, on the move. But always restless, dissatisfied.
It is not the quantity of experiences that satisfies us, on the contrary it often leaves us emptier than ever and ends up boring us. In reality we seek life, happiness, fully and forever.
«I want to live always, always, always;
and I want to live,
this poor me that I am
and I feel like I'm now and here...
Me, me, me, always me! – Some readers will say
But who are you?
And here I could answer him:
For the universe nothing;
everything for me"
(Miguel de Unamuno, Of the tragic feeling of life.
Profound words, which express the intensity and strength of the desire to live, the search for life in fullness, for absolute Good. John Paul II said that man's incessant search is a sign of his vocation to communion with God, it is a reflection of the attraction (appeal) of the absolute Good.
Maybe we don't think about it, we are distracted, scattered, superficial. Here lies the mission of the Church which points to this goal. She also often does this with architecture, as in many cathedrals, with the sky painted in the dome.
Mary of the Assumption is the model of Christian hope. Let us make Mary's song our own. «Let the soul of Mary be within us» (Saint Ambrose). We make her trust and gratitude our own. First of all to praise and thank, with her, God:
«My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior!
Because he looked at the humility of his servant."