But I am not. While I defer to the wisdom and decision of the powers that be in transferring Assumption to a Sunday, still I do have pastoral concerns. My fear is the encroachment of convenience into our pastoral decisions. Sometimes, priests will lament that the faithful are not attending Sunday Masses etc but I think Catholics are not to be blamed. I lived in Dublin for 5 years in a socially-depressed area. Mass attendance was about 3%. So much for Ireland being a Catholic country. Anyway, in trying to engage lukewarm Catholics, there was always the temptation towards “simplification”, that is, to make it more convenient for the Catholics to attend Mass. How? Make Mass shorter. Do away with the days of obligation or transfer as many as possible to the nearest Sunday. Even the Readings were not spared. We proclaimed either the 1st or the 2nd Reading. Imagine cutting out a Reading to make Mass shorter to entice people to come.
The end result was that Mass attendance remained as miserable as it had been. The usual milestones to describe the Irish Catholic experience was “hatch, match and dispatch” where birth and subsequent baptism, marriage and funeral were the occasions for intersecting with the Church. The rest is a bonus!!
Making it more convenient is not making it easier for people to practise the faith. It is actually giving an excuse for Catholics to lapse. The simple human psychology is basically reflected in our experience of “clubs”. Look at all the condos with their health and fitness facilities which fall into disuse. Why? Membership is free and easy. You know, an elite feels more special when a club membership offers exclusivity and it is expensive to gain entry. Not when it is free!!
It is just how humans are wired. If this were not so, why would this Diocese have this policy where formation programmes require that a parishioner pays one-third of the fee? When a formation programme is offered free, some sign up but have no problem not showing up because they are not paying for it.
Am I ranting?
Feels like it? But no. The reason is that Christianity is a religion of the Cross, it is a faith that is built upon sacrifice which we make, not because we deserve to suffer but because the human soul, though redeemed, is not free from the effects of concupiscence. According to Catholic teaching, even though baptism removes Original Sin and infuses grace, the physical and moral weaknesses within our human nature remain. According to tradition, concupiscence is the “fomes peccati”, that is, the tinder for sins and as a result our senses have an appetite which tends towards laziness or rather our sensual desires do not always obey human reason.
Which is why we celebrate Assumption. Firstly this Solemnity did not jump out of the blue. Think of two bookends that hold your books. The Immaculate Conception is one bookend and the Assumption is the other. There is a flow, which is natural in fact. Mary was conceived normally through both Joachim and Anne but through the singular grace of her Son’s death and resurrection, she was preserved from the inheritance of Original Sin. She does not inherit the fallen nature of Adam but is instead, through the merits of Jesus Christ, filled with sanctifying grace.
Apart from preparing her to be the worthy vessel of singular grace, which was to bring Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour into the world, the effect of her freedom from inherited sin, was an entire life dedicated to the will of God. Of course, this might suggest that she was “inhuman” for our concept of “humanity” is taintedness or rather sinfulness. The truth is she not only lived a fully human life but it was also a completely grace-filled life which meant that she cooperated with the plan of God’s salvation. At the Wedding at Cana, she was able to say, “Do WHATEVER He tells you” because she herself did that completely.
The natural result is that the Immaculate Conception flows into the Assumption. According to St Paul, the wage of sin is death and as a poet once said, “She is our tainted nature’s solitary boast”. Therefore, she who was unstained by sin, would follow a path different from ours. If the logical consequence of Original Sin is death and decay for the human body, then, Mary’s path is different from ours.
Of course, the East follow a different trajectory. They celebrate the Dormition. According to Orthodoxy, even though the title of the Solemnity is the Sleeping of Mary, that is the Dormition, they emphasise that she died a physical death, was Resurrected three days later and brought to heaven. The Catholic position reflects a different emphasis. Pope Pius XII in 1950, through the ex-cathedra Apostolic Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, left the question open as to how Mary’s life ended except that she was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. The theological concern about Mary’s actual death was left open because the Pope chose to focus on Mary’s bodily glory.
And this brings the Solemnity down to us, sinners or saints. Firstly, it denotes how sacred our human body is. As more and more bodies are being cremated and given our notion of “freedom” as freedom from restrictions rather than freedom for noble excellence, the idea is that our ashes should be scattered as a final ode to freedom without limitations. The Church’s teaching is based on the sacredness of the human body. We do not dispose of the body, even when it is ravaged by sin, because it is still destined for a heavenly reunion.
A preface which I like is how despite our sins, Christ Himself manages to craft something out of death so that we may enjoy the heavenly reunion. “You came to the aid of mortal beings with your divinity and even fashioned for us a remedy out of mortality itself, that the cause of our downfall might become the means of our salvation”. For Mary, her sinlessness gained for her a glory which only she alone can share with her Son. For us, tainted by sin, Christ fashioned a means of salvation for us through death. Yes, we die because we have to, due to Original Sin, and yet through His death, we gain an everlasting foothold in heaven for, in Him, death has become our means of salvation. We can join Mary in her glory once we have paid the price of our sins. “The Virgin Mother of God was assumed into heaven as the beginning and image of your Church’s coming to perfection and a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people”. We can be comforted by Mary’s Assumption.
In conclusion, Assumption should have stood by itself and not be transferred. A hard task is a hard task. It is difficult and it is not the case that a difficult task is always the better choice. As a principle, we should not make it hard to practise the faith. But over-simplifying things because it is more convenient does not inspire sacrifice. A heavy Cross cannot be lightened without losing its meaning. Our faith is forged in fire and sustained by sacrifice. It is not born of comfort or cultivated by convenience. I have one homily less to think about. I should be ecstatic but no. I would rather suffer now than to suffer later.
