説教
Welcome the Blessed Mary to the Divine Table in the Heaven
A Meditation on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
St Luke’s Gospel 1:39-56
(15 August 2022)
“My soul glorifies the Lord,
my sprit rejoices in God, my Saviour.”
These precious words of prayer of Mary, the Blessed Virgin, were offered to God when she was conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Her words well correspond to the Collect for the Feast of her Assumption. The Collect reflects her tremendous joys when she was lifted up high to the Heaven by the Lord Jesus. The words of the Collect are as follows;
‘Almighty ever-living God,
who assumed the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of your Son,
body and soul into heavenly glory,’
This Collect reminds us of his assurance of Jesus given to his Mother and his disciples just before his bearing the Cross, followed by his Resurrection and his Ascension.
“When I am lifted up from the earth,
I shall draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32)
The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was first celebrated in the 5th Century. From the beginning, this feast has been the celebration of the memories that Our Lord Jesus fulfilled his promises, first, to his Mother Mary he thanked and loved most.
Now, what is the heavenly glory, into which the Blessed Virgin Mary was lifted up by her Son Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
The heavenly glory is the Divine Communion of the Most Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. According to the Church’s tradition, it has been believed that the Divine Communion of the Trinity is celebrated at the heavenly table, as drawn by the Russian Monk the Venerable Father Andrei Rublev in his famous icon.
This icon brings us into the lovely imagination that the Blessed Virgin Mary must have been welcomed by the Most Holy Trinity as the special and most beloved guest, even as the Mother of God, in gratitude and love at the Divine Table of the Trinity in the Heaven.
It must be most suitable for the Blessed Virgin Mary to have been welcomed by the Most Holy Trinity as the Mother of God after she completed her faithful and irreplaceable service throughout her life on earth to her Son and the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
The Mother of God served Jesus most faithfully throughout her life after she had accepted her calling from God with her following words of humble and full acceptance;
“You see before you the Lord’s servant, let it happen to me as you have said.”
Then, she conceived God’s Son as her Son and was made herself the Mother of God, then she brough her Son up and would be with him until the time of his death on the Cross.
It is obvious that, without Mary, the Mother of God, we have not have the Body of Christ, Jesus himself. St Athanasius, therefore, called Mary as ‘the Mother who gave the Body to God”. He reminds us of the fact that, without Mary, we the Catholics could not celebrate the Mass as we would not have the Body of Jesus for us.
We the Catholics never celebrate the Mass only within our heart, but always with the Body of Christ which is really present sacramentally. We will be allowed to enter the Divine Communion by receiving the Body of Christ, which Jesus received from his Mother Mary, and then which he will give it to us at the Mass. We, thus, cannot enter the Divine Communion without Mary.
From the Divine table in the Heaven, surrounded by the Most Holy Trinity, Mary, the Mother of God, who has given the Body to her Son Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the will of God, the Father, will also give us our bodies in the eucharistic sense, that is, she will give birth to each of us in her love and prayers as our Mother, too.
We now celebrate the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of God, who has been welcomed by the Most Holy Trinity to their heavenly table. Finally, then, she will welcome us to join her with the Most Holy Trinity at the same heavenly table to which Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother, was first welcomed.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
