Thursday 15 August 2024
Assumption of the Virgin Mary

1st reading: Revelation 11,19a;12,1-6a.10ab
Psaume : 44, (45),11-12a,12b-13,14-15a,15b-16
2rd reading: 1 Corinthians 15,20-27a
Gospel: Luke 1,39:56-XNUMX

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This year, our memories are filled with the many exploits of athletes during the Olympic Games. It is good to admire all the work that this represents and all the beauty of humanity which is manifested to us there, to be able to contemplate the fruit of perseverance in work, in training. Many newspaper articles are published... I would just like to quote the passage from a columnist from the first issue of Corinthians-Future, a certain Paul of Tarsus who writes:

« You know well that, in the stadium, all the runners participate in the race, but only one receives the prize. So you run so that you can win. All athletes in training impose severe discipline on themselves; they do it to receive a laurel wreath that will fade, and we, for a wreath that does not fade. Me, if I run, it is not without setting the goal; If I fight, it's not by hitting the void. But I treat my body harshly, I make it my slave, to prevent myself from being disqualified after proclaiming the Gospel to others. »

Yes, by contemplating the work of these athletes, we can question ourselves as Saint Paul does in the first Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 9,24:27-XNUMX), about our way of training ourselves to achieve the true victory which is that of the Kingdom. 

A drawing recently passed before my eyes representing the three winners of an event on the podium, but in this drawing we saw them from behind and we also saw what was happening under the three steps; and there were represented a multitude of steps below, under the ground which we cannot see, on which there were marked: endurance, perseverance, work, renunciation, et cetera, et cetera…Whatever these athletes had to do to get to where they are, and that’s what St. Paul is telling us. And what do we do to get to heaven? Because brothers and sisters, I invite you to be ambitious and to have Heaven as your ambition.

By coming to celebrate the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, we come to contemplate that one of us, the first of the saved, has reached the end of the journey: in her body and in her soul, her whole person is glorified by the glory of God. This is what we are contemplating today, this is our future that we are contemplating today. 

This sky, this beautiful sky, our Homeland, Saint Thérèse has a strong appetite for it. This comes up again and again under his pen. In manuscript A, when she remembers the vacation they spent in Trouville and her discovery of the sea, she writes this:

“[22r] In the evening, at the time when the sun seems to bathe in the immensity of the waves leaving a luminous furrow before it, I went to sit all alone on a rock with Pauline... Then I remembered the touching story “From the golden furrow!…” I contemplated for a long time this luminous furrow, image of grace illuminating the path that the little vessel with the graceful white sail must travel… Near Pauline, I resolved never to move my soul away from the gaze of Jesus, so that she may sail in peace towards the Homeland of Heaven!..."

And in a letter to her sister Léonie, Sister Thérèse-Dosithée, she said:

Oh ! how sweet it is to think that we are sailing towards the eternal shore!… (LT 173)

Yes, brothers and sisters, this is what illuminates the whole meaning of our life: we were made to share the glory of God. Each of us was created, was willed by God, so that God would clothe us with his glory so that we could all enjoy life to the fullest. And so that we can enjoy life to the fullest, God became man to teach us, in the concreteness of our humanity, what it is to live like God, what it is to “imitate God” as we heard last Sunday. 

The Virgin Mary is a model for us because she did this. Because in this particular grace which is hers, that of the Immaculate Conception, she kept this grace by living in communion with God. And the Virgin Mary lived this life like ours, in what Thérèse calls “the common path”. After Mary welcomed in the Annunciation the Word of God who became flesh in her, what exceptional thing did she do? Nothing. She lived her life as a woman, a wife, a mother, a widow, discreetly, in the ordinary life, keeping faith in the promise. And what she did extraordinary was to live internally the Mystery of the Cross. When at the foot of the Cross, before his dead son, in it too, the word of God seems torn, the promise of the Annunciation - “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will have no end” — this word seems impossible to receive. And yet Mary keeps the faith...

Analogously, when Thérèse, after Easter 1896, enters this test of faith and hope, when she no longer sees this “beautiful Heaven” to which she so aspires, she will keep her faith in Jesus clinging to him, always with the Virgin Mary next to her. I read to you a few lines from Thérèse's latest poetry which bring out the ordinary of the Virgin Mary:

2. It is necessary for a child to be able to cherish his mother 
Let her cry with him, share his pain
Believing me your child is not difficult for me 
Because I see you mortal and suffering like me….

8. Oh! that I love, Marie, your eloquent silence,
For me it's a sweet and melodious concert
Who tells me of greatness and omnipotence
Of a soul that only awaits help from Heaven...

17. The number of little ones is very great on earth
They can raise their eyes to you without trembling
It is by the common way, incomparable Mother
Please walk to guide them to Heaven.

18. Waiting for Heaven, O my dear Mother, 
I want to live with you, follow you every day...

Mary who won the victory by keeping this ardent faith and allowing herself to be constantly saved by God, Mary who thus stepped on the head of the serpent, who thus crushed the dragon, Mary accompanies us and teaches us to win ourselves victory, because we heard it in the second reading: Christ must reign until the day when God has put all his enemies under his feet. But how does God place all his enemies under the feet of Christ? It is through the spiritual combat of the entire body of the Church of which we are members. It is through us, with us and in us, that Christ is gaining victory over all the forces of evil, to the extent that we work through Jesus, with Jesus and in Jesus. It is through our faith in Jesus, which translates into concrete charity, that Thérèse teaches us through her various writings. It is in this faith acting through charity that we allow God to achieve victory over evil for all humanity. And if Thérèse is so ardent to gain Heaven, it is not for herself alone and it is not for her first and foremost, it is so that all men can be saved. She offers her whole life for the salvation of souls. And she says very clearly that if she had to work more staying on this earth than going to Heaven, she would prefer to stay on this earth. Brothers and sisters, by contemplating the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the whole meaning of our existence is renewed. What is the point of everything we do? This must serve to cooperate in the work of Christ for the salvation of the whole world.

None of us is powerless to change the face of the world. Each of us through our own conversion, through our cooperation with Christ, in faith, hope and charity, we contribute to making this world better and more beautiful. 

And I quote again these magnificent words of Pope Benedict XVI in number 31b of the encyclical Deus caritas is : “We only make the world a better place by doing good now, personally, passionately, wherever possible”. 

May none of us despair on this day either of our salvation or of the salvation of the world. 

Let none of us be discouraged by the way the media reports world news. 

And when we read the newspapers, when we look at this or that site, let us always do it with Jesus and in the contemplation of this holy Virgin blessed in her Assumption who tells us towards what we are walking. 

To finish, I leave the floor to Thérèse in the finale of her fifth recreation, The Divine Little Christmas Beggar — it is an angel who speaks:

If you are still faithful
To please the Sweet Lamb
Love will give you wings
And you can fly high
One day in the Holy Fatherland
After exile
You will see Jesus and Mary
So be it!…