“Jesus, Mary and the First Fruits of the Resurrection”

Introduction

As always it is a pleasure for me to be with you on this happy day to celebrate the patronal feast day of your parish, our Blessed Mother assumed into heaven.  Yesterday was the actual feast day of the Solemnity of the Assumption, but we celebrate the Solemnity today, on Sunday, in order to rejoice in the patronal feast day of this parish.  The word “solemnity” signifies honor and decorum and formalities in a ritual to underscore the dignity of what or who is being honored.  In Church usage, it also refers to the rank of honor given to a feast day of our Lord, our Blessed Mother, or a saint, with the title “solemnity” being the highest rank of honor, equal to that of Sunday. 

The Son and His Mother

Being of the highest rank, Sundays and Solemnities are celebrated with the highest honor liturgically.  For example, Masses for Sundays and Solemnities have three readings, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament (from one of the epistles or the Acts of the Apostles or the Book of Revelation) and a Gospel reading.  During the Easter season, however, all three readings are from the New Testament, the first reading always coming from the Acts of the Apostles, indicating that Christ’s Resurrection has brought us into a new era of salvation history, when the work of our redemption is completed. 

As you will have noticed, however, today’s feast day, which does not occur during the Easter season, also has three readings from the New Testament.  The celebration of the Assumption of our Lady is something like a little bit of Easter months after the Easter season has reached its conclusion.  We celebrate our Lady’s glorification.  We see her Son’s glory mirrored in her, and she reflects his glory to us. 

The Church has always seen in the life of our Blessed Mother parallel mysteries in the life of her Son: the Church celebrates the birthday of both (Christmas and the Feast Day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on September 8), their suffering (Good Friday and the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows on September 15, which teaches us about our Lady’s perfect union with her Son in his Passion), and their being established in glory in heaven (the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe on the Last Sunday of Ordinary Time, and the Crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth which we celebrate one week after the Assumption).

First Fruits

Reflecting the glory of her Son, we see in the person of our Blessed Mother the fulfillment of St. Paul’s teaching in his First Letter to the Corinthians.  He speaks here of first fruits.  You know better than I that the sign of first fruits indicates the beginning of the harvest, and so more fruits of the harvest will follow.  Likewise, Christ’s Resurrection from the dead is an indication of the resurrection to follow after him of those who follow in his way.  And the first of these is his own mother, who shared perfectly in the mystery of redemption that he won for us.  Jesus rose from the dead not simply so that we could see his glory, but so that he could destroy death for us, and so that we could share his glory in heaven.

St. Paul continues on here to speak about Adam and Christ.  He says that death came through man, that in Adam we all die.  Adam here signifies our human nature, which is weak and inclined to sin which leads us to death.  Death is the bitter fruit of sin, which is our own fault.  We owe a debt to God because of our sin, by which we deny Him and try to live according to our own way and not God’s way.  We owe this debt to God, but it is beyond us, we cannot pay it back on our own, only God can do that for us.  But since it is we who owe it, God became a man so that, as man, we could pay this debt back to God and be freed from the shackles of death and live a life of purity and faithful discipleship in His sight.

To live such a life of purity and fidelity, however, requires a lot of effort on our part.  Jesus wants us to know true happiness with him and one another, and this only comes from living the way he teaches us, he who is the way, the truth, and the life.  And he gives us plenty of help!  He gives us the Church, our mother, to nurture us with the sacraments and his teachings which lead to true peace and freedom.  And he gives us his own mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, as our mother, too.  She is the first one to share in those first fruits of her Son, and she is always there to intercede to him for us.  She walks with us, guides us and protects us as our loving mother.

Conclusion

God could not have given us any greater gift!  And this, even though we are unworthy of it!  The only response we can give for such an unmerited gift is gratitude, lived by trying to please God and all that we do.  We can never repay God for all He has done for us, and accomplished through His Son born of Mary his mother, but love makes us want to try, anyway.  We thank God for sending us His Son so that we may be free, pure and faithful; we thank Him for calling Mary of Nazareth to be his mother and ours, to reflect His Son’s glory to us and show us how to live the life of that glory.  Let us strive, then, with the help of His grace, to please Him in all things, that God may be glorified and we may spread His light in the world.  Amen.