Assumption of our Flesh

The daughter of the King comes in, all beautiful: her robes are of golden cloth.

Thou art the glory of Jerusalem! Thou art the joy of Israel! Thou art the honour of our people!

Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear: and the King shall greatly desire thy beauty.

Epistle and Graduale - Psalm 44:14, Judith 15:10, Psalm 44:11-12

It is that holiday again - The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Liturgy for this feast is full of beautiful allusions to Our Lady from Holy Scripture:

From the beginning of Creation, Our Lady is foreshadowed as the one God would distance from Satan (Genesis 3:15)

I will put enmities between thee and the Woman, and between thy seed and her Seed.

(Offertorio)

But as sin entered the world through Eve and disobedience, so too Grace enters the world through one Woman: the Blessed Virgin Mary. Hence Christ becomes the 'New Adam' (1 Corinthians 15:22) and where we were once dead in Sin, now we are alive in Christ. This is the essence of the sign of Our Lady's Assumption into Heaven.

In the Eastern Church, this event is known as the "Dormition" or the 'Falling asleep' of the Mother of God. For it is not even as though Mary had died; her body was "full of Grace" (St Luke 1:28) and the stain of Sin, and hence the power of death, were not present in her. Thus she prefigures the consummation of the whole Church, in the same way that Our Lady is often seen to represent the whole Church (Apocalypse 12:1):

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

(Introit)

The Assumption and Crowning of Our Lady is the last glorious mystery of our Faith. Our Faith does not rest solely with the Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord into heaven: the climax is the first fruits of his saving power over humanity. For Christianity is not some ethereal and abstract philosophy: it is concerned with the sanctification of the FLESH.

"Behold: I make all things new!"

Apocalypse 21:5

Christianity is an earthly, bodily religion. God created us in His own image, and it is only through humanity's own fall that the flesh now speaks out of sync with our soul. Thus pain and suffering abound, and we are lost to understand the meaning of it all. Our whole history is concerned with the power of death and sin over our lives: but this is not the end of the story. With the coming of Christ, we are grafted onto a new tree: a holy and living well of salvation. It is through the Grace which flows from Christ that our flesh is made holy (cf. Romans 5:16). Christ took once holy and sacred institutions, like marriage and bodily unity for example, and re-instituted them as righteous things.

O Virgin most prudent, whither goest thou, bright as the morn? All beautiful and sweet art thou, O daughter of Sion, fair as the moon, elect as the sun!

Magnificat Antiphon - Canticles 6:9

Through Christ we can find the once lost meaning of the flesh and all our earthly desires. It is thus simple to understand why Our Lord chose earthly symbols to be the very carriages of His Grace: water to wash us clean of Sin (right); bread to feed us with His Body, and unite us as the grains of wheat; Wine to carry forth His Blood and saving death as a sacrificial lamb; Oil to anoint and strengthen our spirit, and heal our soul; and the conjugal act to unite two as one in the most primitive human example of divine love.

All generations shall call me blessed, because He who is mighty hath done great things to me.

Communio - St Luke 1:48-49

It is with especial excitement that our church, the Oratory, has become the centre of much media excitement in recent weeks. Its founder, Cardinal John Henry Newman, will undoubtedly be declared 'Blessed' by the Church, and numbered among the just in heaven, as a suitable intercessor and example for all the Christian Faithful. Part of this process is the transferral of his earthly remains from the grave in Rednal (left), to a marble sarcophagus in the Birmingham Oratory, to be venerated by the faithful. Before anyone sees this as 'medieval and macabre' we have but to remember that early Christian worship was founded in the catacombs, upon the bones of the Saints.

The great basilicas in Rome, of St Peter (right) and St Paul, the 'pillars of the Church', have now been archaeologically proven to be built upon their earthly remains. We believe that Christ has sanctified the Saints in body and soul, which is why at the end of the world their bodies will be resurrected and reunited with their souls, currently enjoying heavenly bliss. In a similar way, we will venerate the bones of Newman, who we know was a vessel of Grace for us all, and especially in England. Those bones are not an empty shell, but an imprint of heavenly glory in our earthly lives, and one which will be raised up and consummated on the Last Day.

Just as Our Lord has taken his mother, the Immaculate Virgin Mary, up into heaven , body and soul; so also we pray that our eyes may be fixed on heavenly things, and that we may share in the same glory!