CYCLE II: HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 19TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME (1)

CYCLE II: HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 19TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

HOMILY THEME: Feast of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary : WHERE IS MARY?

BY: Fr. Benedict Agbo

 

HOMILY: * Rev 11 : 19 – 12 : 10, 1 Cor 15 : 20 – 26, Lk 1 : 39 – 56.

Twenty seven years ago I was doing my apostolic service after my first degree in the Seminary. One of the jobs I did with passion was going round to revive all the Block Rosary centres around the Urban City of Nsukka. One of my greatest obstacles was the one posed by one Pentecostal Pastor living around the vicinity who kept on confusing these children and discouraging them from praying with Mary with one argument : THAT MARY WAS A DEAD PERSON IN THE GRAVE AND THEREFORE CANNOT HEAR PRAYERS. It was such a powerful and plausible argument! And I didn’t find it easy refuting this argument and its effect on the minds of those gullible children then. Today, as an accomplished theologian, I feel like revisiting that argument at the behest of this year’s celebration of the feast of Assumption. I want to ask a metaphysical question : ‘Where is Mary?’
Our first thesis from the conclusion of the first reading of today is that ‘the salvation and authority of Christ has come’, no doubt about this but the big question is : Has this authority any intrinsic association with Mary? The ancient promise / revelation remains sacrosanct : ‘I will put an enemcity between you and the woman… between her offspring and your offsprings’, Gen 3 : 15.

This promise was fulfilled in this passage of victory of ‘the woman clothed with the Sun, with the moon under her feet…She was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth’, Rev 12 : 1 -17. The conclusion of this eternal war has it, according to this vision of John, that ‘the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God’. Despite other exegetical possibilities, the definitions of this chapter give us a giant clue that certainly tilts the balance of interpretation in favour of a Marian reading among biblical theologians. The enemies of ‘devotion to Mary’ are of the view that Mary is still in the grave and has no metaphysical capacity to hear prayers nor assist people in intercession against the backdrop of biblical information that there is a communion of Saints and Angels in heaven and a great rejoicing over anyone that repents on earth, Lk 15 : 10. We are asking a vital question here : Where is Mary? In the grave or in heaven seated at the right hand of her Son Jesus?

Today’s 2nd reading makes it clear that Christ has been raised from the dead, the 1st fruits of those who have fallen asleep (the dead believers)… As all die in Adam, so also in Christ shall all be made alive’, 1 Cor 15 : 15 – 26. We need to clear the eschatological confusion here about those who die in Christ. Before Christ they remain in a spiritual state of inactivity ( limbo) but Christ used the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, Jn 11 and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Lk 16 to teach us that those who live and believe in Christ will never die ( metaphysically). They therefore remain alive and can spiritually commune with us.

Mary is the most blessed among women ; She is more blessed than Deborah, Judith, Esther, Ruth and all the other holy women mentioned as ‘blessed among women’ in the Old Testament. She is blessed as “full of grace” and mediatrix of all graces, Lk 1 : 29. She is blessed as the “mother of my Lord”, Lk 1 : 42. She is blessed because she “believed that there will be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord”, Lk 1 : 45. Therefore, from henceforth, “all generations ( of true believers in Jesus) shall call her Blessed. She is not blessed because she is in the grave. She is blessed because she was assumed into heaven after her death as we learn from some of the apocryphal writings. Everything that Jesus did and her mother did is not contained in the Bible, Jn 20 : 30, some were handed over as apostolic traditions, 2 Thess 2 : 15.

Happy feast of Assumption beloved friends!

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