The Solemnity of the Assumption



I surprised the family this morning with blueberry pancakes with homemade raw whipped cream to celebrate today's solemnity of the Assumption of Mary.   (Blueberries to represent Mary, whipped cream to represent the 'clouds' of heaven...pancakes just because they're good, right?)  The boys were all very appreciative and ate their fill.  I asked John Paul what we should have for dinner and he said mashed potatoes...for the same cloud analogy.  So we'll have some mashed potatoes and I guess we'll add a few other unrelated things as well!  Our parish will celebrate Mass this evening and I'm hoping to stay after and pray a Rosary as a family in the church.

Today is one of my favorite feast days of the Church. Not only is it a celebration of Mary's perfect purity in soul and body as she followed her Lord and Son in every way, but it is a reminder of the fate of ALL of us who choose eternal life.  As Christians we believe in the Resurrection of the Body.  This means that at the end of time, we will be reunited with our body, which will be glorified and perfect.  Heaven is not just a bunch of souls floating around, nor do we turn into angels.  At the Resurrection of the Body we will become complete and perfect human beings, body and soul.  We will experience things with the senses!  Our Lord and Mary because of their sinlessness are able to enjoy that perfect humanity right now...but we get to join them!

This feast is one of the quintessential feasts for those who understand the Theology of the Body. Our bodies are GOOD.  They are true.  They are beautiful.  They will exist in heaven!  While we must struggle in this life with our concupiscence and train our bodies to obey our will, they are fundamentally a beautiful gift from God and they are meant to be used to bring Him glory!  As a mother, the ways I do that are so very tangible.   We as women are so blessed.  We can be open to the gift of new life within our marriages. We can embody that as a pregnant woman nurturing and growing a new little one to bring Him glory.  We can birth this baby with our whole body, experiencing the pain and the ecstasy as it was designed to be. We can feed this baby with our very bodies!  How amazing that is.  We can nurture and care for our children and husbands through meals, service, hugs, time, and in countless other ways. 

We are not meant to just pass through this life.  We are meant to live it in a real, sensual, tangible way.  The gift of our bodies allows us to do that and God is glorified in that.  It is a struggle for many of us to realize how good our bodies truly are.  We want to pray in our heads and not out loud or with our bodies.  We want to love with "our hearts".  We want to anesthetize ourselves to the physical pain (and often the pleasure!) that a full life provides.  So many choose to abuse their bodies and those of others with drugs or food or pornography bringing their souls down with it. 

The Solemnity of the Assumption is a beautiful reminder from the Church that being fully human, and fully HOLY, means embracing our body as a means to glorify God.  Holiness entails using our body as a way to enter eternity now.  May we all discover a fuller understanding of the goodness of the body and emulate Our Lord and Mary as the perfect models of that complete and perfect bodily gift to the Father...and strive to do the same.

1 comment

  1. Amen, what else could one say... :)
    Thank you for this post. It was a nice addition to my meditations of the meaning of the Assumption today...

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