Apocalypse 11.19; 12.1-6,10; Ps 144; I Cor 15.20-26; Luke 1.39-56
Thomas Merton, the well-known Trappist, once remarked that ‘Everything that Mary had she got from her Son.’ We might add that everything that Mary’s Son bestowed on her He wills to bestow on us as well.
And so on this feast day we hear St Paul’s account of the destruction of death by the resurrection of Christ, a resurrection harvest of which He is the first-fruits, and those who follow Him are to be the harvest’s maturity. Mary is the paradigmatic disciple; we who, however imperfectly and falteringly, listen to her son and endeavour to follow him
[Luke 8.21] are meant to receive from him the same honour he has given her.
The feast of the Assumption is a kind of Easter festival. Mary triumphs over the wiles of Satan, triumphs over the death that is the birthright of every child of Adam. She shows us thereby what Christ has planned and prepared for us, his brothers and sisters. And blessed are all they who believe that the promise of the Lord will be fulfilled.