Today is the Feast of the Assumption. The monastery I have been affiliated with for most of my adult life is named for "Our Lady of the Assumption". For many people, having a devotion to the humble, historical person "Mary from Nazareth" must seem rather mysterious, fanciful, and quite abstract. But this very deep devotion, from the perspective of Christian Faith is quite compelling and attractive, when thought through completely.
According to Christian Revelation, with the spotlight on Redemption of Humanity, we come interestingly into the possibility of a "new" human life, or more precisely a "new" human family.
"In the beginning" in Sacred Scripture, we learn of the origins of an original human family, at a point when the Creator breathed into the developed species a living rational spirit, bearing the image and likeness of the Divine. At this point we are told that both "male and female" were formed, with the woman to be named Eve, Mother of all the living. According to the account, it was through the woman that temptation was first consented to, and sin entered the world infecting both the man and woman. With sin came many maladies and evil currents which obviously infect our world up to the present hour.
In the new Redeemed Humanity, Jesus is (the "New Adam") and Mary ("Behold your mother" John Ch: 19) becomes the New Eve, the Mother of the Redeemed Human Family....all believers and receivers of the redeeming love of God. Mary is a mother in the order of faith, living and active on the level of spirit and life. So we are called to love and thank her. The Feast of the Assumption commemorates and celebrates her place in the afterlife...she who said "yes" to God, unlike the first mother Eve, and conceived our Redeemer in her womb. When the curtain comes down upon our world and all falsehood and vanity will vanish, these Realities will shine forth in all their splendour. It is well for us to believe in what God has revealed!
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