[Sermon delivered at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 18, 2024, being the fourth day of the Octave of the Feast of the Dormition]
✠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]
I happen to be inordinately fond of baptisms. Oh, sure, I get a bit misty at weddings and there is something ineffably wondrous about a funeral for a living saint, full of hope and gratefulness as well as the sadness of letting go, but baptisms touch my heart like nothing else. These people are stepping out in faith with their support network present and the prayers of Holy Church uplifting them in baptism undergo an amazing transition. Outwardly they appear the same, emotionally they may feel no different, but now in the very core of their beings there exist not one but two natures. In this partaking through this sacrament in the death, burial, and resurrection of Our Lord, the power of the Holy Spirit bestows upon these redeemed from Death the renewed nature of an uncorrupted Humanity given to us by Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
[Names of the newly baptised redacted to protect their privacy], this is the day you are born anew, where you have taken on Christ and His Humanity, beginning a new chapter of your life that will extend beyond time and the boundaries of this world. Words cannot express the joy of what is to come, the joy of the angels in your redemption, the joy of the saints in your inclusion among them, and the joy of Mary, the Mother of God, in receiving the gift of her Son.
Now, as new members of Holy Mother Church, you begin your immersion in the mysteries of the so-called not because they are a puzzle to be solved, but because they are truths that defy easy explanation, or often any explanation whatsoever. This will take the rest of your life eternal, because God is infinite, His Mercy is infinite, His Wisdom is infinite, and His grace is Infinite. Yes, we will be spending the rest of eternity discovering things about the One Who loves us more than anyone else ever could (yes, that too is infinite), and this will never get old.
That said, since Thursday was the Feast of the Dormition (or Assumption) and today we are in the Octave (or eight-day celebration) of the Feast, I will address briefly some of the Church’s teachings concerning the mysteries of Mary, the Mother of Our Lord.
One mystery is the Greek title Θεοτóκος.[2] This translates into English as, “She that gives birth to God,” which we often simplify as Mother of God. Many who call themselves Christians may take issue with that, but in doing so risk denying Jesus’ Divine Nature. For our salvation and deliverance to work, Our Lord Jesus must carry in Himself both the Divine from the action of the Holy Spirit at His conception and the Human from His mother Mary, and because He bears both natures, she who carried Him for nine months below her heart contained the One whom the Cosmos cannot contain, gave birth to the One who is eternal and beyond all time and space, and became both Temple and Tabernacle to Almighty God. Because of all this she is also styled Παναγία, which means “All Holy” or more commonly “Most Holy.” To deny her that title denies the Divinity of Christ, which is a very dangerous thing indeed.
Another mystery is her title “Mother of the Church.” Because she is the mother of Our Lord, and the Church is His Body. Related to that are titles such as “Queen of Heaven,” or from a favourite Orthodox hymn of mine, “Queen of All Creation.” If you pray the Rosary (and as a Dominican I sincerely hope you do), the Fifth Glorious mystery is that of her crowing in Heaven and the reception of these titles. Again, some would strongly object to referring to her this way, but before you consider throwing yourself into that camp, I would ask that you consider the following:
The ancient monarchies of God’s people Israel gave special prominence to the Queen Mother, and many famous women of the Old Testament were Queen Mothers, that is, the mother of the current King.
In multiple places in Christian Tradition and Holy Scripture Our Lord is given the Kingship (not presidency, but absolute Kingship) over the Church and over Earth and over Heaven.
As Mother of God, Blessed Mary Ever-Virgin possesses the unique place of being mother to the King of all creation and the King of the Church.
As the foremost witness of Her Son, the one who submitted completely to God’s will at the Incarnation, and the one who told the servants at the Wedding at Cana, and by extension who tells us, “Whatever Jesus tells you to do, do it,” she is our prime example of what it entails to be a follower of Jesus.
As all the saints, as stated in the Book of Revelation, receive crowns and share in the Kingship of Our Lord, then she too shares in this honour.
Therefore, it is by no means inconsistent with Scripture or Tradition to refer to Our Lady by these royal titles.
We now should turn to the mystery of Our Lady’s Assumption or Dormition, of which this is the fourth day. Though accepted by over 1.5 billion Christians, many even within our own communion dispute this. Did she only die and are her bodily remains still here on Earth, or was she indeed taken up into the Highest Places to take her place at the right hand of God? While historically from the time of Puritan ascendancy in Anglicanism in the Seventeenth Century to the middle of the Nineteenth Century the overwhelming opinion within the Anglican Communion departed from acceptance of this mystery, the position is slowly reversing, causing Anglicans to look at the whole tradition of the Church Universal, and not just the witness of the Roman Church.[3] In doing so, Anglicans are finding a duality within the traditions concerning this feast. I say duality, but not dualism. In the East it is commemorated as the Dormition, a euphemism for death that even Our Lord used when he stated that Jairus’ daughter or Lazarus had “Fallen 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 each contains within themselves the elements of the other tradition, and both have important implications in the doctrine of our salvation.
In the East, the tradition emphasizes the account of Blessed Virgin’s death, including a report of her Son Our Lord appearing and taking charge of His Mother’s soul after her passing. As an epilogue, the Eastern tradition states that those who attended her to the end went back to her grave, but like her Son’s tomb they found it empty. The Western tradition also acknowledges that she does indeed die as we all do, but the emphasis rests on 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). Regardless of where the emphasis on the shared tradition rests, 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 the very day of the Crucifixion, why cannot Mary, the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, share in the same grace and be assumed by God to eternity as the first of the Dead in Christ to rise? We have primary relics of the Twelve, of St. Paul, but no primary relics of her, an opportunity Christians would not have let slip by! So, while we do not hold the Assumption as an article of faith as the Roman Church does, it is in no way inconsistent with Scripture, Tradition, or even Reason, and is a confirmation of the hope we all have in Christ Jesus.
There are other doctrines and traditions concerning Our Lady, but sadly time forbids us. But if you take nothing else from this sermon with you today, remember that in Our Lord’s words, “God is not God of the Dead but of the Living,” and that with the rest of the saints in light she stands before God’s throne offering her prayers for those who ask them of her. 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 occasional visions, 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 weak, the lowly, and the downtrodden. She shows us by her example that thanks to the sacrifice of her Son, that we mere 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. She calls us to join her to worship the Father by the Grace of Her Son in the Power of the Holy Spirit. It is only right and fitting to honour her as we do.
✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, More Honourable than the Cherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, who without corruption gave birth to God the Word, the prayers of Holy Dominic, and the prayers of all the saints, Christ Jesus Our Saviour save us. Amen.
[1] Sub Tuum Praesidium (Ὑπὸ τὴν σὴν εὐσπλαγχνίαν, “Ypo tēn sēn evsplangnian”), ancient 3rd century hymn/antiphon to the Virgin Mary.
[2] “Theotokos.” Slavic Christians call her Богородице (“Bogoroditsē”), which essentially is the same thing.
[3] Cf. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ, 2004
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