The Assumption of Blessed Mary, Ever Virgin

Galatians 4.4-7; Luke 1.46-55

The Assumption or Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of the major Feasts of the Church of England and indeed of the Church throughout the world. In the Church of England, each individual church tends to make of it whatever they will as we are more than a bit hesitant as to how we should remember Jesus's mother. There are at least three feast days allocated to her in the Church's calendar, this, the 15th August, also the celebration of her birth held on 8th September and the Annunciation on 25th March. The hesitation we bring is characterised in one of the resource books we use for services throughout the year, which says that the 15th August, although traditionally being the major feast of the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God since the 5th century is used in the Church of England as a 'generic' date for remembering Blessed Mary. In other words we can use the date to remember Mary in any way we like. I think this hesitation in the Church of England comes out of fear that is still a hang over from the Reformation and fear of the Roman Catholic Church; which is a very great pity because all the tradition surrounding Mary and our veneration of her as the Mother of God is meant to point us firmly towards her Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ and in that, onward to the Holy Trinity. Our looking towards Mary and our celebration of her never stops at her, but is always carried onward to God, and that is almost always shown in iconography and icons of Mary, since the earliest days of the Church.

When we come to consider Mary from the point of view of our faith, we find that there are many stories, myths and legends surrounding her with miracles attributed to paintings, statues and icons of her; and there are many stories about people having visions of her one or two of which you might know well. When I was on Mount Athos I bought a couple of icons of Mary the originals of which have miraculous stories attached to them. I've brought a copy of one of those today, that of the Virgin Portaitissa or Gatekeeper.

Whatever we think about these stories, they are meant to be first and foremost, encouragement to us in our faith and to help us think about Mary herself and especially about the Son of God. Today especially we think of Mary herself and her particular calling. And as we do that we might feel challenged about our own commitment and devotion to God. For Mary was someone who more than anything submitted fully to the will of God for her. Her submission was total. What an extraordinary calling she had. To be the mother of the uncreated God become Incarnate through her and the Holy Spirit. God could have chosen any way to make his presence on earth known to people, as He had in past times. But He called a woman to bear His Son, His created presence and to bring Him to birth in time and place. And that woman, probably still a teenager put her own will aside to do the will of God. And in that she is probably our greatest example of dedication to God.

This putting aside our own will to do God's will is probably the hardest thing for us to do. Our own ego gets in the way all the time. It causes us to think that if we replace our own will with God's will that we will somehow become as nothing, be of no account, lose our identity, become a sort of slave without any say in how our life is lived. But in actual fact, the reality is that when we do give ourselves to God's will, we become what He always intended us to become. And that is always our highest achievement; to be what we were always intended to be and not what we think we should be from our own poor human point of view. As we grow we have all sorts of ideas about the person we should be or would like to be, as our ego and our sense of identity take shape. But it's all usually so very self-centred as we pursue status and authority and power, all of which are ego driven. And as we get older it gets more and more difficult to set those aside because we think those things are what make us the person we are. But we are only what we are meant to be when we become what God wants us to be.

It's a tough calling, doing God's will, letting it be first in our life, letting it be what drives us, what we are here for. Mary did it as she submitted herself to the Holy Spirit's working in her and so we can too because we are all chosen of God, each and every Christian is chosen of God and has the Holy Spirit working in him or her, from our baptism onwards. Whether or not we co-operate with the Holy Spirit is another story but we always have the option to, we have the choice in every moment of every day, to follow Blessed Mary's example of submission to God and in doing so becoming everything God wants us to be, becoming fulfilled in the best and truest sense.

And so we venerate Mary today, if for no other reason than she shows us, above all others what it means to do God's will, to live in perfect harmony with the Holy Spirit's calling and prompting. And we pray today, that God will help us and that through the prayers of the Blessed Virgin herself, God will help us to turn our heart, mind, soul to Him and to do His will now and every day of our lives.