Mary’s Assumption into Heaven. Our assumption into Heaven?

This short reflection was inspired by John Paul II’s Wednesday audience on Psalm 44, “Listen, O daughter!”1 The liturgical celebration of the Assumption of our Blessed Mother into Heaven took place a few days ago on August 15. Precisely, just in the middle of the month, her Solemnity stands, or so it should, as a summit… and as a beacon of hope of our future resurrection and entering in the presence of God.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo2

Psalm 45 [44]

Psalm 45[44] unfolds a further horizon besides that of a joyful nuptial song. John Paul II says that “the Psalmist’s insistence in exalting the woman is important: she is “clothed with splendor” (v. 14), and this magnificence is illustrated by her wedding robes, woven of gold and richly embroidered (cf. vv. 14-15). The Bible loves beauty as a reflection of God’s splendor; even clothing can be raised to a sign of dazzling inner light and purity of soul.”

The portrait of this queen was applied to Mary by many Church Fathers “from the very first words of the appeal: “Listen, O daughter, give ear…” (v. 11). Chrysippus of Jerusalem writes,

“My discourse is addressed to you,” he says, turning to Mary, “to you who must go as bride to the great sovereign; to you I address my discourse, to you who are about to conceive the Word of God in the way that he knows…. “Listen, O daughter, give ear to my words”; indeed, the auspicious announcement of the world’s redemption is coming true. Listen, and what you will hear will gladden your heart… “Forget your own people and your father’s house”: pay no attention to your earthly parents, for you will be transformed into a heavenly queen. And “listen,” he says, “to how much the One who is Creator and Lord of all things loves you.” Indeed, the “king … will desire your beauty”; the Father himself will take you as bride; the Holy Spirit will arrange all the conditions that are necessary for these nuptials… Do not believe you will give birth to a human child, “for he is your Lord and you will adore him.” Your Creator has become your child; you will conceive and with all the others, you will worship him as your Lord.”

The Assumption of Mary is a reminder of our calling to the heavenly dignity. The nuptials God has made with humanity in his Son through the Incarnation, find in Mary a worthy example of the nuptials of God with each one of us. Christ rose from the dead, and Mary was taken into Heaven as a paradigm of an uncorrupted life, of a soul without a trace of sin, a living example of our dignity of children of God called to Heaven.

I take the liberty to include a poem on the Assumption from my book Desde Fossanova, written in Spanish:3

Asunción de la Virgen

“Y elevando los ojos al Cielo…”

(Plegaria Eucarística I)4

Cual si mirase Dios eternamente

en su espejo de belleza infinita,

y sin pares una Madre imagina

para Sí, será Asunta y Purísima.

Da a luz sin el tiempo el Eterno

a su Madre, de barro y de lirios,

y sin mancha que rompa el espejo

virginal que dará cuna al Hijo.

Y en un vuelo tan suave de partos

sin dolor y sin llantos de niño

ya concibe la Niña el retoño

más hermoso que nunca se ha visto.

Se regresa el Arcángel enviado

con premura de eternos suspiros

para dar a los Tres el anuncio

que esta Virgen les ha concebido.

Y volviendo sus ojos angélicos

hacia el “Cielo” dejado en la tierra

balbuceos tropiezan sus labios

que éste, Cielo no fuera sin Ella,

que esta Madre es un trozo del Cielo

y la tierra es un Cielo con Ella,

y que el Cielo no es Cielo si falta

a su Dios su creatura más bella.

Y de gozo impaciente sin tiempo regocíjase a una el Dios Trino

pues no ve ya el momento que ascienda

a los Cielos la Madre que Él hizo.

Regocíjase en tres el Dios Uno

cuyo Hijo de Reyes es Rey,

y corona a su Madre, cual Reina

que hoy el Cielo (se) ha puesto a sus pies.

God bless you all.

1 https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/2004/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_20041006.html. Accessed August 14, 2022.

2 https://www.christianiconography.info/Wikimedia%20Commons/assumptionMurillo.html. Accessed August 14, 2022.

3 Marcelo J. Navarro Muñoz, Desde Fossanova (Chillum, MD: IVE Press, 2022), 136-37.

4 Un hermoso retablo en la capilla del segundo piso en el Santuario de Mariahilfberg, Neumarkt (Bavaria) muestra a Nuestra Señora Asunta al Cielo y siendo coronada. El pensamiento surgió al pronunciar estas palabras de la Plegaria Eucarística I, y al elevar los ojos se ve a nuestra Madre que, en sentido acomodaticio, es también “nuestro Cielo”.

[Readings: Is 66:18-21; Heb 12:5-7, 11-13; Lk 13:22-30]

Fr. Marcelo Javier Navarro Muñoz, IVE

Father Marcelo J. Navarro Muñoz, IVE is a professed member of the religious family of the Institute of the Incarnate Word. He was ordained in Argentina in 1994, and then worked as a missionary in Brasil, Guyana, Papua New Guinea, Brooklyn (NY), San Jose (CA), and currently resides at Fossanova Abbey in Italy. In 2020 he obtained his Ph.D. through Maryvale Institute and Liverpool Hope University in the UK. Besides philosophy and fundamental theology (his field of specialization) he has authored two books of religious poetry.

1 Comments

  1. Deborah van Kroonenburg on August 29, 2022 at 2:56 pm

    Thank you for this poem of heaven – our piece of heaven in our Mother’s eyes.
    (I am so grateful that her feet ever touched the earth).

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