Time Immortal

John Sutherland writes, in response to this article:

Before you go too far with Origen you had best check out other of his views that the Catholic Church would have to condemn as heretical.

It is true that many of Origen’s teachings were later condemned as heretical — but, as I’ve said before, everyone gets it right sometimes (that article isn’t related to Origen, but it’s an example of me saying what I just said I’ve said before).

In fairness, though, the theological difficulties that Origen ultimately got into with the Church seem to have more to do with his followers, and the views later attributed to him. Though many of his teachings were ultimately condemned as being anathema, he remains a father of the Church, and many of his analytical and theological methods are still considered valid even today.

And if in the end it is what is true that matters, then whether other aspects of Origen’s teachings were condemned is irrelevant: if he is, in fact, right about the fact that to fully comprehend John, we cannot push the Blessed Virgin to the sidelines, then that is what is important, and at the heart of the matter. And in fact, he is quite correct about that: the Gospel of John, itself a heavily theological work, culminates with the image of Christ as the Tree of Life, with the beloved disciple and Mary attending to Him. And Christ gives Mary her son, and gives the beloved disciple — and, by extension, all of us who are in Christ — a mother. The whole of the Gospel must be approached with this final act of the Lord in mind.

Update: Welcome, Way of the Fathers readers!

Though it confirms the obvious, it never hurts to reflect that the more one explores early Christianity, the more one will find that the teachings and traditions of the early Church can only lead one in a single direction: toward Catholicism.

As anyone who has studied the New Testament or the Gospel of John knows, modern Biblical scholars love to quote the early Church Father Clement of Alexandria’s comment that the Gospel of John is a “spiritual Gospel.” It is interesting that you never see the similar comments of the great biblicist, Origen, who had this to say:

“No one can grasp the meaning of the Gospel (of John) unless he has rested on the breast of Jesus, and unless he has received from Him Mary, who becomes his mother also.” (Origen, Commentary on John, 1:6)

All truth, in and outside of Scripture, is found in the Church, and the degree to which we part with Rome is the degree to which we part from the fullest revelation of Christ.

Update: Welcome, Way of the Fathers readers!

Charles Tysoe writes in with a follow-up to my response to a few of his comments from a while back. I’m going to break up his message a bit and respond to it in a more inter-linear fashion, although the good Reader can rest assured that the entirety of what Charles‘ message will be included in this post. He covers a few different topics, however, which I would prefer to address as they arise.

[7] But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
[8] or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
[9] Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
[10] In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.

Thanks for responding.

I thought after I sent that email that I should have looked up “message-incident” again to make sure I had the phrase right; thanks for clarifying and that is indeed the one I did in fact search for.

Would I find it, for instance in the Poetics of Aristotle?

Is not Aristotle essentially a heathen philospher? Was it not Aristotelian methodology that plagued Catholic Middle Ages Scholarship and led in part to the controversy involving Galilei Galileo’s works?

I wish you and/or DOL would make clear the source and rationale for “message incident” since it seems of murky pedigree and since DOL hangs such great weights from this small wire. He claims to be an Evangelical, and is a member of ETS. Can he point to other present or past members of this association and specific examples of this principle in action? Otherwise we have just you and DOL (and perhaps Aristotle) as advocating this system. That’s a very small sample space.

Aristotle was indeed a pagan philosopher, but I don’t think he had as much to do with the Galileo affair as did Ptolemy, all things considered. Also, I feel I should caution both the Reader, in general, and Charles in particular, against the automatic dismissal of non-Christian philosophers. Even in the Bible, God imparts blessings and wisdom to His chosen people through pagans and non-believers. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament give us examples of this. It should also be noted that St. Paul often quotes from non-Jewish and non-Christian poetic or philosophical sources.

In the end, what matters is what is true (Philippians 4:8). Whether we arrive at this by a source from within Christendom or without, what ultimately matters is what is true. And if there is in Aristotelean philosophy something that is true, or which enables us to better understand some aspect of the truth of the Lord, then we ought to pursue that thing.

I mentioned, previously, that the “message-incident” principle draws heavily, I think, upon Aristotle. That was a comment made out of personal opinion rather than out of specific knowledge of the fact on my part; it may well be that there is absolutely no Aristotelean influence in the principle itself. I was remarking on what seemed to be a similarity to me between the Message-Incident Principle and the notion of accidentals that inform the Catholic understanding of Eucharist.

In the Eucharist, we have the host, which at a glance appears to be a thin wafer of unleavened bread. However, this is not the sum total of its nature, nor is this an accurate picture of its nature. A separation needs to take place in our understanding of it, for it is actually the Real Presence of Christ Jesus, and retains only the accidentals (shape, taste, etc.) of the bread which it formerly was. The Message-Incident Principle doesn’t exactly mirror this understanding, but the idea is similar: a separation has to take place in our understanding of the text of the Bible, in that we need to be able to look at the message of faith conveyed by the text separate from the incidental events or details given by the text.

Previously, I gave the example of Ephesians 5, and how when we interpret this passage it is necessary to separate the “incident”al aspects of the text — some of which can seem sexist at first — from the theological “message” that St. Paul is attempting to convey, by illustrating the relationship of Christ to the Church through the imagery of the relationship between husband and wife. The purpose of the passage is not to convey a somewhat sexist message, nor is the purpose of this passage to present an improper model of the relationship between husband and wife; it is to present a model of the way we relate to Christ, and Christ to the community of His faithful. But to understand as much, we need to separate, categorically, the teaching from the imagery used to present it.

I will cover this in greater detail when I get to that part of my review of Denis O. Lamoureux’s Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution. The first part of that review, which looks at Denis’ examination of analytical categories, should be going up later today, provided that I don’t get too bogged down in other tasks.

How would this method, if laid out in parallel, compare to the current evangelical standard, the “Grammatical-Historical” method?

Let’s see if we can establish a comparison here. As I understand it, the Grammatical-Historical Method is structured as follows:

“Interpreting grammatically

• The historical-critical method assumes that words and expressions have a relatively stable meaning during given periods of history. Therefore, we begin by taking what we can determine as the normal, everyday meaning of the words, phrases, and sentences to the extent possible. In other words, our interpretation must correspond to the words and grammar in the text in a reasonable way. Otherwise, the interpreter could assign meaning of his own without objective control. The Bible would become a horoscope of vague sayings we try to plug into our lives however we are able.
  • Most of the Bible can be easily interpreted by simply taking the language (either in the original or translation) in the usual way (Jn. 3:36; Acts 1:11). In other words, if the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.
  • A plain sense reading should not be confused with a literalistic interpretation. We should allow for figures of speech (Mk. 1:5; Lk. 22:19).
  • If a passage contains symbols or a special literary genre this should be indicated in the text, either by textual cues, or because symbolism is required in order to make sense of the text. Most symbols are explained by the Bible itself (Rev. 1:9-20)

Interpreting historically

• - Historical interpretation means that we take into account the historical background of the author and the recipients as possible. The Bible was written to common people, and is understandable to anyone. However, it was written thousands of years ago to a different culture. Therefore, as modern readers, we have to try to recover a general sense of the meaning of words, phrases and concepts in the ancient cultures.  These phrases are addressed in Scripture primarily to the Hebrew and Greco-Roman culture of the first century.
  • We are not interested at first in the question, “What does it mean to me?” but rather, “what did it mean to those whom it was originally written?”
    • - Rev. 2:12,13 - Pergamum was the center of the worship of Aesclepius.
    • - I Cor. 11:4-6 - Shorn hair was typical of Aphrodite priestess-prostitutes; shaven heads were typical of convicted adulteresses (vs. 5).
  • Use Bible dictionaries or other sources to discover customs, money, geography, etc. Then
    find a corresponding meaning in our culture.
    • - Good Samaritan (Lk. 10); 2 Denarii (Mk. 6:37); 50,000 Drachma (Acts 19:19)
    • - Pharisees’ teaching on the relationship between illness and sin (Mark 2; John 9:1) “

Conversely, the Message-Incident Principle is structured thusly:

Message

• Divine Theology
• Inerrant and Infallible

Incident

• Ancient Science
• Ancient Phenomenonological Perspective

“This approach contends that in order to reveal spiritual truths as effectively as possible to the ancient peoples, the Holy Spirit used their ancient phenomenological perspective of nature. That is, instead of confusing or distracting the biblical writers and their readers with modern scientific concepts, God descended to their level and employed the science-of-the-day. Similar to the central message in the Kenotic Hymn, the Creator humbled Himself through the use of ancient human ideas about nature in the revelatory process. Therefore, passages in the Bible referring to the physical world feature both a Message of Faith and an incidental ancient science. According to this interpretive principle, Biblical inerrancy and infallibility rest in the Divine Theology, and not in statements referring to nature. Wualifying ancient science as “incidental” does not imply that it is unimportant. The science in Scripture is vital for transporting spiritual truths. It acts as a vessel similar to a cup that delivers “living waters” (John 4:10). However, the word “incidental” carries meanings of “that which happens to be alongside” and “happening in connection with something more important.” In other words, the ancient science in Scripture is “alongside” the “more important” Message of Faith.” (Denis O. Lamoureux, Evolutionary Creation, pp. 110-111)

Now, how do these two things compare?

For starters, I want to comment on something tangential. It has always struck me as a point of some curiosity that evangelicals, who profess to be true “Biblical Christians,” tend also to not be Eucharistic Christians. Indeed, evangelicals tend to set themselves very much against Eucharistic Theology. Which is, I content, very odd for an element of Christianity which purports to interpret the Bible according to the maxim: “if the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.”

With all due respect to my evangelical bretheren, the plain sense of e.g. John 6, Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and 1 Corinthians 11 is that the bread we break in the meal at the altar is meant to be, and become, the literal and true Precious Body and Blood of Christ. He gives us His own flesh to eat, and His own blood to drink, in memory of Him and of His sacrifice for our sins…and we fail to discern Him in the bread and wine at our eternal peril. That is the plain meaning of the text, and yet evangelicals do not seem to interpret it thusly. This suggests to me that perhaps the default hermeneutic that evangelicals employ, the Grammatical-Historical Method, is somewhat subjective and arbitrary.

Thus, the problem with insisting on the use of literal-ish hermeneutics, and with insisting that Scripture be taken at its “plain meaning”, is that nobody really does that with any kind of consistency. Let me put that more plainly: no Christian ever takes Scripture at its plain meaning at every opportunity — indeed, many of us are often guilty of a certain hypocrisy when we insist upon just such an approach. More often than not, what we really mean when we insist on taking things at their plain meaning is: “let us use my interpretation of Scripture; let us take it at what I say its meaning is.” A similar fault exists with the evangelical concept of letting Scripture “self-interpret.” And for this reason, the grammatical aspect of the method actually exists in contradiction of the historical aspect.

There’s really no two ways about it: if our hermeneutic is to always take Scripture at its most obvious meaning, on a passage-by-passage basis, then we should all be Eucharistic Christians in light of John 6. That we are not all Eucharistic Christians means that we do not always take Scripture at its plain meaning; we only do so when it is convenient to the point we are making.

In contrast, the Message-Incident Principle presents us with a better approach. It allows us to respect the historical context of what is written in Scripture, which the Grammatical-Historical Method also purports to do, but lets us do so in a way that prioritizes the message of faith contained within the text, rather than the incidental aspects of the text itself. It allows us to look past the cultural context that is apparent in many passages of Scripture (see again the earlier example of Ephesians 5), and to look to the spiritual lesson that God, through the divine inspiration of the authors of the Biblical texts by the Holy Spirit, is seeking to impart to us.

And — this is the key point, I think — it allows us to do so with greater consistency. The key flaw of the grammatical aspect of the Grammatical-Historical Method is that it assumes that the Spirit necessarily intended for all of Scripture to be taken at its plain meaning. There is little to no support for this conjecture within Scripture itself, and little to no support for it in the writings of the early theologians and Doctors of the Church. Because of this lack of support, the notion of “plain meaning” in evangelical grammatical interpretation tends to take on the form, as previously noted, of subjective personal opinion about the text, even if this opinion is actually contradicted by other parts of the Bible.

In contrast, the Message-Incident Principle proposes that our focus in interpreting the Biblical text should be on the message of faith conveyed in the text. This seems reasonable, since the principal intent of the Bible is to bring to humanity a message of faith, revelation, and salvation. Notably, however, this interpretive method does not attempt to shoehorn the text of Scripture into a literal or “plain meaning” framework that it may not necessarily belong in. The priority is not on the raw text itself, which contains a mixture of divine revelation and ancient human understanding, but on the revelation proper.

Of course, this opens up the question of how we sort out those passages meant to be taken literally from those which are not meant to be taken as such. That’s an interesting discussion in and of itself, though not one I will verge into at this time. After all, I have just gone into the Message-Incident Principle more than I intended to, and I want to retain something unique for my review of Denis’ book’s fourth chapter.

As to other examples of the principle “in action,” I cannot say: it may be a newer thing. But it should also be noted that a newer thing, if it is a correct thing, is a correct thing first and foremost, regardless of its age or lack thereof.

What is the warrant for privelging the scientific method as the hermeneutical sieve for Genesis?

I feel I should correct Charles on one point here: science is not priveleged above Scripture in Evolutionary Creationism. If anything, the “Two Books” — God’s Words and God’s Works — are regarded as equals, at least as far as their capacity for revelation is concerned. Also, what each Book reveals to us is different: the Bible reveals God directly, and Jesus, and the promise and hope of salvation. Creation, and by extension science, reveals the natural works which the Lord has made, which tell and proclaim His glory (Psalm 19:1) and impart, to those who ask it of them, wisdom and truth about the one whose design is reflected in every aspect of the world and all the Universe (Job 12:7-9).

But as it is, there are two principal “warrants” from which we derive a sense of the importance of being able to understand the harmony which must exist between the discoveries of science and the revelations of Scripture.

The first “warrant” is an old teaching indeed, from St. Augustine of Hippo. In his book The City of God (or get it for Kindle!), St. Augustine notes that as Christians confronted with new discoveries in the field of science and “in matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision … we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.” (Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, pp. 41)

The saint adds additional warnings later in the book. He cautions, for instance, that we should let “no one think that, because the Psalmist says, He established the Earth above the uater, we must use this testimony of Holy Scripture against these people who engage in learned discussions about the weight of the elements. They are not bound by the authority of our Bible; and, ignorant of the sense of these words, they will more readily scorn our sacred books than disavow the knowledge they have acquired by unassailable arguments or proved by the evidence of experience.” (Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, pp. 47-48)

He likewise notes, in what seems almost a prophetic vision of the scientific ignorance of Young Earth Creationsts today, that “someone may ask: ‘Is not Scripture opposed to those who hold that heaven is spherical, when it says, who stretches out heaven like a skin?’ Let it be opposed indeed if their statement is false…. But if they are able to establish their doctrine with proofs that cannot be denied, we must show that this statement of Scripture about the skin is not opposed to the truth of their conclusions.” (Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, p. 59)

Augustine is not attempting here to undermine the validity of Scripture, but is rather attempting to warn would-be evangelists that there is more to know than what is taught within its pages. The Bible does not discuss every aspect of the physical world, nor should it: it is not a book of science, but is instead a book of faith. And it is not a bludgeon to be used to shout down the reasonable discoveries of researchers and scientists either; it is a revelation of truth, but there are other things not contained within its pages which are likewise true, and known to be true either from demonstration or experience.

Which brings us to the second “warrant,” a more modern writing: Truth Cannot Contradict Truth, an address given by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In a way, the name says it all: the revealed truth of Scripture and the discovered truths that are the fruits of scientific research do not and cannot contradict each other. If both are true, then they must be compatible and even complementary.

Which is what St. Augustine was getting at in The City of God. It is ludicrous to assume that the saint thought, for one minute, that Scripture was diminished, supplanted, or rendered invalid or untruthful by the discoveries of scientists. At the same time, it is obvious that Augustine could see, plainly, that it was obvious that those same researchers could and would discover things about the nature of the world which were truthful. Augustine understood that humanity is constantly learning new things about the world in which it lives, and that Scripture was written by men less learned about such things, who necessarily wrote with within the framework of their own limited understandings.

And he knew that the truth of revelation could not and would not be contradicted by the truths discovered by continuing inquiry into the nature and shape of the world…but he also understood that if Christians who were ignorant about the sciences and too eager to present Scripture as the sole source of truth attempted to evangelize to those who were wiser about nature, two things would happen: souls would be lost, and Christ would be ridiculed.

Let us look at the various things which Augustine warned would happen to “reckless and incompetent [and scientifically ignorant] expounders of Holy Scripture” and see if his predictions came true at all:

1. non-Christians know something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge is held to as being certain from reason and experience?
2. people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn?
3. an ignorant individual is derided?
4. people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men?
5. reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture…are taken to task by these who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books?
6. to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion?

I submit that the answers to these predictions are as follows:

1. Absolutely, without a doubt. One need not be a Christian to be a competent researcher in a scientific field, to conduct good and honest scientific study, or to make accurate and truthful scientific findings.
2. Absolutely. Read any debate on Young Earth Creationism, on any web-forum without serious membership requirements, and you will see this exact phenomenon taking place.
3. Ditto.
4. Ditto.
5. Ditto. Or check out TalkOrigins and the comprehensive list of rebuttals to ludicrous Young Earth Creationist claims archived there.
6. See #2.

So while it is important to not prioritize science above Scripture, it is likewise important to refrain from taking the Answers In Genesis approach of using Scripture as a bludgeon against the legitimate discoveries of science. To do the former is at once heretical and near-blasphemous. To do the latter, I submit, imperils not only the souls of those who hear a foolishly-given message and reject it, but also the souls of the foolish evangelists themselves.

Regarding the Scripture from Job (and also, for instance, the nineteenth Psalm); there is no reference there about the so-called “fossil record” teaching us about the mind or the ways of God; or the “Big Bang” theory about unobserved events in the pat; or about “homology” or any other so-called “proofs” of evolution. Evolution consists primarily of speculations about the unobserved past; morever, death and suffering and disease are the method, by Darwin’s own confession, by which the Creator perfects his creation. This is contrary to the character of God and also to the Bible teaching that God finished from his work of creating, a rest that persists until now, and that his completed creation was “very good”.

Actually — and here we are getting into the topic of another article I was meaning to write — Charles is quite incorrect about evolutionary theory and about the nature of God in relation to death and suffering. A paper I wrote a couple of years ago kind of hints at this, and I’m not inclined to go into too much additional detail here because it would, of course, spoil what is yet to come.

But let us at least consider one quick point. Christ Jesus is the Word (c.f. John 1), and in that understanding we must likewise understand that the entirety of the Word of God — the Bible — points to Christ. From the first word of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, to the last word of the last book of the last chapter, all of Scripture points to Jesus and His salvific promise. Which means, in turn, that all of Scripture points to the sacrifice of Christ, and His death on the cross for our sins. Which in turn means that all of the Bible, even from the very opening of the Book of Genesis, points to the death of Christ on the Cross and His glorious resurrection and ascension into Heaven.

Which means that from the very beginning, death was a part of God’s plan for His Son, who came to Earth and was born of Mary as a human being. Which must mean that from the very beginning, death — the death of the physical body — was a part of God’s plan. Were it not a part of His plan, we could not say that all of Scripture points to Christ; we could only say that almost all of Scripture points to Him. And since He is Scripture — the Word, the Logos — “almost all” just doesn’t cut it.

The fact of the matter is: God did perfect His creations through suffering and death. Or, perhaps more accurately, God assured the eternal perfection of His creation, though we who yet live have not been perfected yet, through the suffering and death of His son, Jesus, whose sacrifice had both a temporal and eternal component to it. And from the very first moments of creation, this was God’s intent for His creation.

As to Charles‘ assertion about how evolutionary theory is mostly just speculation, that is almost a comment which is not worth responding to. Anyone who cares to see it will find that there is actually quite a lot of evidence for evolution (that hyperlink offers but a small and cursory sampling) — but with Christians who promote a false dichotomy between science and Scripture, no evidence is sufficient. It’s rather the same phenomenon as one sees in atheists: evidence is demanded, God obliges with…say…a miraculous healing, and the atheist(s) in question shrug and say that were God truly extant, He would not have healed just one person. Some would call this “moving the goalposts.”

It should also be noted that modern evolutionary science has largely abandoned Darwin’s initial conjectures; Darwin today is little more than a straw-man for Young Earthers to attack in lieu of attempting to contravene solid evidence for sound theories.

I apppreciate you are going to review the book chapter by chapter, but if you answer please don’t repeat the book because I am doing the same thing myself.

What are the illustrations you contributed to the book?

Chuck Tysoe

Well, I did throw in one reference from the book, good Reader, so I do hope that Chuck will forgive me that much. As to which illustrations I contributed, there are three of them (and all of them are attributed in the book). They are on pages 108, 116, and 362.

One was of the “three-tiered universe,” the cosmological model presented in the Bible. Another was a line-art rendering of an ancient Babylonian “map of the world,” which demonstrates what the authors of Scripture are talking about when they refer to the “circle of the Earth.”

The last one was a demonstration of evolutionary mutations in chicken wings caused my augmentations in certain enzymes in the chick embryo. Some augmentations caused rather absurd and unfortunate deformities to the wings, while others resulted in the chickens being hatched with “arms,” complete with wrists and fingers.

Fascinating stuff.

I’ll still be following various current events, although I probably won’t be posting on as wide a range of topics in the coming days. Also, I won’t be posting as many entries. I’ve been going over my notes, and I’ve decided that I should take care of a few other bits and pieces of content that I’ve been neglecting for the last little while.

For example, there’s the ongoing series I’ve been working on concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, which I need to finish up. Also, there’s the Answers from a Catholic series, which I need to add some installments to. I’ve also got a few other articles planned concerning creationism and evolution, as well as the book review of Dr. Denis O. Lamoureux’s Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution.

So for the next little while, Catholicism is going to be the principal topic here at Time Immortal, and (as noted) the number of posts per day can be expected to diminish (but the length of posts can be expected to increase, on average). So don’t get discouraged if for some reason the RSS feed isn’t as active as it has been in the past, good Reader.

Pope Benedict XVI delivered this sermon on August 15th, which is the feast day of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the oldest Marian Feast, returns every year in the heart of summer. It is an opportunity to rise with Mary to the heights of the spirit where one breathes the pure air of supernatural life and contemplates the most authentic beauty, the beauty of holiness. The atmosphere of today’s celebration is steeped in paschal joy.

“Today”, the antiphon of the Magnificat says, “the Virgin Mary was taken up to Heaven. Rejoice, for she reigns with Christ for ever. Alleluia”.

This proclamation speaks to us of an event that is utterly unique and extraordinary, yet destined to fill the heart of every human being with hope and happiness. Mary is indeed the first fruit of the new humanity, the creature in whom the mystery of Christ — his Incarnation, death, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven — has already fully taken effect, redeeming her from death and conveying her, body and soul, to the Kingdom of immortal life.

For this reason, as the Second Vatican Council recalls, the Virgin Mary is a sign of certain hope and comfort to us (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 68).

Today’s feast impels us to lift our gaze to Heaven; not to a heaven consisting of abstract ideas or even an imaginary heaven created by art, but the Heaven of true reality which is God himself. God is Heaven. He is our destination, the destination and the eternal dwelling place from which we come and for which we are striving.

St. Germanus, Bishop of Constantinople in the eighth century, in a homily given on the Feast of the Assumption, addressing the heavenly Mother of God said: “You are the One who through your immaculate flesh reunited the Christian people with Christ…Just as all who thirst hasten to the fountain, so every soul hastens to you, the Fountain of love, and as every man aspires to live, to see the light that never fades, so every Christian longs to enter the light of the Most Blessed Trinity where you already are”.

Mary follows Jesus to God’s glory

It is these same sentiments that inspire us today as we contemplate Mary in God’s glory. In fact, when she fell asleep in this world to reawaken in Heaven, she simply followed her Son Jesus for the last time, on his longest and most crucial journey, his passage “from this world to the Father” (cf. Jn 13:1).

Like him, together with him, she departed this world to return “to the Father’s House” (cf. Jn 14:2). And all this is not remote from us as it might seem at first sight, because we are all children of the Father, God; we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus and we are all also children of Mary, our Mother.

And we all aspire to happiness. And the happiness to which we all aspire is God, so we are all journeying on toward this happiness we call Heaven which in reality is God. And Mary helps us, she encourages us to ensure that every moment of our life is a step forward on this exodus, on this journey toward God.

May she help us in this way to make the reality of heaven, God’s greatness, also present in the life of our world. Is this not basically the paschal dynamism of the human being, of every person who wants to become heavenly, perfectly happy, by virtue of Christ’s Resurrection?

And might this not be the beginning and anticipation of a movement that involves every human being and the entire cosmos? She, from whom God took his flesh and whose soul was pierced by a sword on Calvary, was associated first and uniquely in the mystery of this transformation for which we, also often pierced by the sword of suffering in this world, are all striving.

The new Eve followed the new Adam in suffering, in the Passion, and so too in definitive joy. Christ is the first fruits but his risen flesh is inseparable from that of his earthly Mother, Mary. In Mary all humanity is involved in the Assumption to God, and together with her all creation, whose groans and sufferings, St. Paul tells us, are the birth-pangs of the new humanity.

Thus are born the new Heaven and the new earth in which death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more (cf. Rv 21:1-4).

Christ conquered death with love

What a great mystery of love is presented to us once again today for our contemplation! Christ triumphed over death with the omnipotence of his love. Love alone is omnipotent. This love impelled Christ to die for us and thus to overcome death. Yes, love alone gives access to the Kingdom of life! And Mary entered after her Son, associated with his Glory, after being associated with his Passion.

She entered it with an uncontainable force, keeping the way behind her open to us all. And for this reason we invoke her today as “Gate of Heaven”, “Queen of Angels” and “Refuge of sinners”. It is certainly not reasoning that will make us understand this reality which is so sublime, but rather simple, forthright faith and the silence of prayer that puts us in touch with the Mystery that infinitely exceeds us. Prayer helps us speak with God and hear how the Lord speaks to our heart.

Let us ask Mary today to make us the gift of her faith, that faith which enables us already to live in the dimension between finite and infinite, that faith which also transforms the sentiment of time and the passing of our existence, that faith in which we are profoundly aware that our life is not retracted by the past but attracted towards the future, towards God, where Christ, and behind him Mary, has preceded us.

By looking at Mary’s Assumption into Heaven we understand better that even though our daily life may be marked by trials and difficulties, it flows like a river to the divine ocean, to the fullness of joy and peace. We understand that our death is not the end but rather the entrance into life that knows no death. Our setting on the horizon of this world is our rising at the dawn of the new world, the dawn of the eternal day.

“Mary, while you accompany us in the toil of our daily living and dying, keep us constantly oriented to the true homeland of bliss. Help us to do as you did”.

Dear brothers and sisters, dear friends who are taking part in this celebration this morning, let us pray this prayer to Mary together. In the face of the sad spectacle of all the false joy and at the same time of all the anguished suffering which is spreading through the world, we must learn from her to become ourselves signs of hope and comfort; we must proclaim with our own lives Christ’s Resurrection.

“Help us, Mother, bright Gate of Heaven, Mother of Mercy, source through whom came Jesus Christ, our life and our joy. Amen”.

The Pope also noted the following, after leading the Angelus:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today, in the heart of what Latin-speakers called the “feriae Augusti”, the August holidays, from which the Italian term “ferragosto” derives — the Church celebrates the Assumption into Heaven of the Virgin Mary, body and soul.

The last reference to her earthly life in the Bible is found at the beginning in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, which presents Mary gathered in prayer with the disciples in the Upper Room, waiting for the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14).

Subsequently a double tradition — in Jerusalem and in Ephesus — attests to her “Dormition”, as Eastern-rite believers say, that is, her “falling asleep” in God. This was the event that preceded her passing from this earth to Heaven, professed by the uninterrupted faith of the Church.

In the eighth century,by establishing a direct relationship between the “Dormition” of Mary and Jesus’ death, for example, John Damascene, renowned doctor of the Eastern Church, explicitly affirms thetruthof her bodily assumption.

In a famous homily he wrote: “She who nursed her Creator as an infant at her breast, had a right to be in the divine tabernacles” (Sermon II: On the Assumption, 14, PG 96, 741B).

As is well known, this strong conviction of the Church culminated in the dogmatic definition of the Assumption affirmed by my venerable Predecessor [Pope Pius XII] in the year 1950.

As the Second Vatican Council teaches, Mary Most Holy should always be seen in the mystery of Christ and of the Church. In this perspective: “the Mother of Jesus in the glory which she possesses in body and soul in heaven is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise she shines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come (cf. 2 Pt 3:10)” (Lumen Gentium, n. 68).

From Paradise, especially in difficult times of tribulation, Our Lady always continues to watch over her children whom Jesus himself entrusted to her from the Cross before dying. How many are the testimonies of this motherly concern found in visiting shrines dedicated to her!

At this moment I think especially of the unique citadel of life and hope that is Lourdes. I shall be going there in a month’s time, please God, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions that took place there.

Mary assumed into Heaven points out to us the final destination of our earthly pilgrimage. She reminds us that our whole being - spirit, soul and body - is destined for fullness of life; that those who live and die in love of God and of their neighbour will be transfigured in the image of the glorious Body of the Risen Christ; that the Lord will cast down the proud and exalt the humble (cf. Lk 1:51-52).

With the mystery of her Assumption Our Lady proclaims this eternally. May you be praised for ever, O Virgin Mary! Pray the Lord for us.

Reposted here given its relevance to other topics under discussion. Are not the fruits of the promises of the Lord made so wonderfully manifest when we contemplate the Blessed Virgin?