Mary of Nazareth first experienced God in her very own body when the Son of God was conceived in her womb. In a manner of speaking, you could say that that was the first time He assumed her body to Himself. Mary also experienced Him through her body during the pregnancy as His physical presence begin to impact on her metabolism. She further experienced Him from her body at His birth. None of this would have happened if, as St. Augustine puts it, She had not already experienced God in her heart, her mind and her soul. Still, it is from her body that the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. That’s why St. John could say that he and the other apostles were able to see with their own eyes, hear with their own ears and touch with their own hands the Word of Life made flesh. Flesh from Her flesh.

St. Alphonsus Liguori, among others, said that Her Immaculate Heart drew the Son of God to earth. He had prepared Her for Himself from all eternity, and He had prepared Her for us. Mary did not share in the curse of Adam and Eve. But Christ bore its full impact because He carried all our sins on the Tree. St. Paul even says that Christ “became sin” (a strong phrase) and was cursed on the Cross so that the curse would be taken from us and be replaced with the blessing of life and grace. Mary received the fullness of that blessing in advance from her crucified Son in Her immaculate conception. By His sacrifice, She was preserved from original sin and its curse. The fathers of the Church tend not to speak of the death of Mary at the end of her life but rather of her dormition. That doesn’t mean that she just fell asleep. In the strength of her fiat, She will have freely surrendered her entire life, soul and body, to God. Like Christ, she died without decaying and awaited the fulfilment of the promise of God of which She sang: “the Almighty works marvels for me …. All generations will call me blessed.”

And that fulfilment came in the form of her resurrection and Assumption, body and soul, into heaven. Here, Christ assumes Her body to Himself once again, as He did at His conception. But this time, it is Hewho gives Her life, divine life, in Her body. She experiences the fullness of the life-giving power and presence of God in Her body. Her whole being, body and soul, is saturated with the gift of divine life. As a human person, She finds Herself before the Three Persons of the Trinity, immersed in Their eternal love for One Another, for Her, for us and for the whole of creation. She had emptied Herself of Herself in Her earthly life by surrendering Herself to the Word and Will of God even to the foot of the Cross. Now, She is filled and overfilled with God’s total giving of Himself to Her in the life of heaven. Here is the fulfilment of Her Magnificat which was not only a canticle of praise to God but a prophecy of marvellous deeds He would do for Her and for the lowly, the hungry and the poor.

And we, too, are beneficiaries of those marvellous deeds if we can truly become lowly before God, hungry for Him and accept joyfully our poverty before Him. Each of us is called to give Him our fiat, our readiness to obey the Word of God, as we are each called to compose our Magnificat for the marvels of His merciful love in our own lives. And those marvels surround us if we but open the eyes of our minds and hearts to them, if we let our awareness be awakened to the gifts of love without end with which the Lord surrounds us at all times. So many things, experiences, achievements and relationships which we enjoy can only be fully appreciated if we open the horizon of our awareness. So often, we focus on what we have done for ourselves or even what our loved ones have done for us. Our focus, our mindset can be so limited to the immediate perspective of this earth. Yet, these very things we and our loved ones do for us, and so much more, are actually what Jesus has done and is doing for us. To expand and deepen our awareness to see God at work requires us to seek the dispositions of Mary, especially humility, obedience and endless trust in God’s Word. In prayer and confession of sin, we can prepare the groundwork for the gift of purity of heart. Mary’s immaculate Heart enabled her to be aware of God’s presence and power and, above all, His love. It may seem impossible to us, but as Gabriel said to Mary, “nothing is impossible with God.”

In fact, the day we were baptised, the Holy Trinity assumed us, body and soul, into the Body of Christ, the Church. The day we first received the Eucharist we received His risen body into our mortal bodies. Mary said “fiat” when Christ was conceived in her womb. We say “amen” when Christ is received in Holy Communion into our bodies and, through them, into our souls. The whole of our lives, then, like Mary’s, is about emptying ourselves of ourselves to let Christ live in and with us ever more fully. That is the meaning of all true love. It is the purpose of our self-giving, our prayer and worship and, yes, of our suffering. In all this, we prepare for where we are ultimately going, which is not death: no, it is resurrection from death and assumption into heaven. That’s where we’re going. That’s what we must consciously prepare for now.

Mary, assumed into heaven, thank you for your fiat. Thank you for your Magnificat. Pray for us in our sinfulness and weakness. Help us to let Jesus take us to Himself ever more fully as we walk in faith and hope through this life together with your Church. Let us experience Him in our bodies in all the marvellous ways He makes that possible. May He be at home in us here below that we might be at home with Him above. Thus, may we, too, come to experience the divine life in our own bodies as we stand with you and with all the saints in endless adoration and praise of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Mary, assumed into heaven, pray for us. Amen.