[Sermon delivered on both the Feast of the Dormition/Assumption and the following Sunday at St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona, 2019]
We take refuge under Thy compassion, O Theotokos; Despise not our petitions in time of trouble, but deliver us from danger, only pure, only blessed one.[1]
Every so often the Church proclaims the witness to God’s Kingdom of particularly notable men and women of the faith. We have since early times. Today is no exception: we venerate the All-Holy, Immaculate, Most Blessed and Glorious Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.
Quite the title. Imagine the nameplate on her desk.
Seriously, though, consider all that we have from Scriptural witness alone. She has been styled “Mother of the Church” by the Roman Catholic Church based on the testimony of Christ’s declaration to St. John from the Cross, on the vision in Revelation chapter 12 where the serpent chases her and her children, that is, the whole Church, into the wilderness, and on the testimony of the Church Fathers, including St. Ambrose. She is the protectress of various orders, including my own, the Order of Preachers. She is called Ever-Virgin, a position upheld not only by the Orthodox and Roman Catholics but by many Reformers, including Luther, Calvin, and even Zwingli. She is considered immaculate, a pure vessel in which the Divine nature was joined to Human nature in the person of her Son Jesus Christ, thus earning her the title Θεοτόκος, “she who gave birth to God,” a title she has borne from early times and ratified after centuries at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. We call her “Most Blessed,” echoing her cousin Elizabeth. For all of this she is styled Παναγία, which literally means “All Holy” but more commonly rendered “Most Holy.” Psalm 45 looks forward to her, the Queen clothed in cloth of gold. She has appeared in visions, inspired acts of faith, and is esteemed by Christians everywhere as the Queen of their Order.
To what does she owe this high veneration? In short, she is the one human who best exemplified the transformational work of the Holy Spirit both before and after the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Consider it. After nearly having her wits scared out of her by the Archangel Gabriel popping out of nowhere in the safety of her own home to deliver what to most people is rather improbable news, she is able to collect her wits enough to ask how God wants her to bear the Saviour of the world, and when given the answer says, in effect, “I believe you, let it be done as God wills.” The faith required to take so risky a path had to be enormous, to risk being outcast or worse. I only wish my faith were that strong. Years later, at Cana, when Jesus’ ministry is just taking off, she rightly foresees what must happen and gives the famous line, “Do whatever He tells you!” That advice wasn’t just for the servants at the feast, those are for us. At Our Lord’s Passion, when His disciples abandon Him, she stays by Him, sharing as much as she could in His suffering. “A sword shall pass through your own heart,” Simeon foretold, and so it did, as she watches with the King of Glory on the Cross, faithful even in the darkest of times. After the joy of seeing Him risen again, she engages daily in prayer with the disciples and with them shares in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And after a lifetime of serving him, she comes to the end of her mortal life and the beginning of her service before the throne, which we commemorate today.
There is an important document that came out in 2004 entitled Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ. This was promulgated by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, and its chief goal is to illustrate the many points where Anglican and Roman Catholic doctrine either agree or can be reconciled concerning the Blessed Virgin. In it we read,
“We agree in recognising the grace and unique vocation of Mary, Mother of God Incarnate (Theotókos), in observing her festivals, and in according her honour in the communion of saints. We agree that she was prepared by divine grace to be the mother of our Redeemer, by whom she herself was redeemed and received into glory. We further agree in recognising in Mary a model of holiness, obedience and faith for all Christians. We accept that it is possible to regard her as a prophetic figure of the Church of God before as well as after the Incarnation.”
In the same document, the Commission mentions the growth of her Feasts, particularly the one held on this day, and they point out the duality in the Tradition between East and West. I say duality, but not dualism. In the East it is commemorated as the Dormition, what in our calendar is called the “Falling Asleep.” In the West, it is commemorated as the Assumption, the actual taking up of the Mother of God body and soul into heaven. The two are in apposition, but they are not incompatible, and both have important implications in the doctrine of our salvation.
In the East, the tale of the Blessed Virgin’s death includes a recounting of her Son Our Lord appearing and taking charge of His Mother’s soul after her passing, but the tale does not stop there. Those who attended her at the end went back to her grave, but like her Son’s found it empty. In the Western telling, she does indeed die as we all do, but the recounting stresses her being raised bodily and translated like Enoch or Elijah to stand at the right hand of the Risen Lord (side note, that’s why James and John could not be at Jesus’ right hand…there was a pre-existing reservation). If St. Stephen at his martyrdom sees Jesus in glory at the right hand of the Father, if Elijah is caught up to the throne, if the good thief on Christ’s right hand on Calvary’s hill is promised Paradise that very day, why can Mary, the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, not share in the same grace and be assumed to eternity as the first of the Dead in Christ to rise? Think of it, we have relics of the twelve, of St. Paul, but no primary relics of her, an opportunity Christians would not have let slip by!
If then, we concede that there is no warrant to disbelieve in the Dormition/Assumption, then what are the implications for us here now? As with all the saints, we ask her, our mother in the faith, to pray and to intercede for us before the Throne of Glory. As one who has attained the goal of sanctification, we can be assured of the effectiveness of her prayers on our behalf. She continues by her example, not only from Scripture but in her occasional apparitions, to turn our lives to God, to “magnify the Lord,” to “do whatever He tells us,” to join with Our Lord in His suffering on the Cross. She offers her protection to those who call upon her assistance in her prayers before the Uncreated Light. She encourages us to press forward in our daily struggles, she teaches us to look to her Son, to be mindful of the downtrodden. She shows us by her example that thanks to the sacrifice of her Son, that we normal mortals can attain to God’s right hand in glory. She proves again and again that God didn’t just “appear” to walk among us, He took human flesh from her and lived as us.
The Most Holy Ever-Virgin Mary goes out of her way to work to bring us to know her Son. Prophet, priest, missionary, she worked tirelessly during her life and prays constantly now for us to come to her Son and through Him and His sacrifice to know the Father. Because she said YES to God’s plan, we can be here today to partake of His sacrifice on the Cross, that act whereby He unifies us to the Father through the Holy Spirit bringing us together to partake of His Body and Blood. Come to Him, all you who are tired and overburdened, and lean on him. Taste and see that He is good. The Blessed Virgin beckons, pointing to the Altar and to His sustaining Presence. Who are we to deny her fervent entreaties to leave sin and death behind and embrace Life and Light, Grace and Hope? Come be renewed, come be sustained, come be empowered. Right now she prays that you do, so that you will grow in strength and grace to work with her to bring others to the Kingdom and to hasten the coming of the Kingdom among us.
More honourable than the Cherubim, beyond compare, more glorious than the Seraphim, you that gave birth to God the Word, truly the Theotokos, we magnify you. Pray for us that we come to the Father through your Son. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Sub Tuum Praesidium (Ὑπὸ τὴν σὴν εὐσπλαγχνίαν), ancient 3rd century hymn/antiphon to the Virgin Mary. Some authorities have even argued a second-century provenance for the hymn.
