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15 ago 2021
15/08/2021 – Assumption of Mary, the Most Holy Mother of God

15/08/2021 – Assumption of Mary, the Most Holy Mother of God

Reading 1 ACTS 11,19; 12,1-6.10 * Psalm 44 * Reading 2 1COR 15,20-26 * Gospel LK 1,39-56

The last enemy to be destroyed is death”. This is how the passage with which Saint Paul is showing us the fruit of the death and resurrection of Jesus ends. The fruit of this great mystery does not come to fruition all at the same time but grows and is made available gradually. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, by coming into the world and sacrificing Himself for us, wins the enemy of our life and our blessing, of the joy of men in the communion they enjoy with God and among themselves. How many enemies do we have? Which one of them is the most dangerous? John, in his book with its strange and difficult language, is talking about a red dragon with seven heads and a terrifying tail, which stretches up to the point to drag the stars with it: this dragon is launching itself against the baby “destined to rule all the nations”, who is taken “up to God and his throne”, and then against the woman who takes refuge in a shelter prepared for her by God. You see, the enemy of men is truly terrible: he tries to take away from men the one who can guide them, the one who can make them happy and can help them live in peace. He is launching himself also against the woman who has given birth to the latter. The heads with the regal tiaras of the dragon help us interpret this vision: they are representing the kings and the powerful of all different nature who are coming one after the other in history: they are all enemies of the true King sent by God, the only worty and the only one capable of helping men live together in the joy of togetherness. They are scary, because they are all allies of death, the enemy which will be an annihilated for last.

Today our attention is on the woman who “fled into the desert”. She looks very much like the Church, which brings together men and the Son of God, but in the Church the first place is always for Mary, the mother. She, in addition of being the first member of it, who has loved and followed Jesus with the greatest love, is also its most representative character. What she has lived and what Mary has done is what the church is living in the world: it is offering to men of all times and in every place the Son of God. The church offers Him to them in the mystery of His death and resurrection, a mystery announced and shared, lived to the point that many Christians die offering themselves with Him as a sacrifice for the Father.

Today the Church is truly celebrating its daughter and mother Mary! Mary is the woman God has made use of to give life to His Son, she is a true servant of the Lord. Her flesh, we might even say, has been part of, was one single thing with the flesh of the Son, and therefore now she takes part in His same destiny, His very glory. If the Son is in heaven, at the right hand of the Father, the mother also takes part with Him in His glory. But above all Mary has been one thing with the Son in giving the Father her yes, in order to live His word without hesitation. She receives and enjoys the benefits that have been promised to all the obedient children: she receives them already from now on, because she does not need purification, as we do, who have let ourselves being influenced by sin and we have dirtied ourselves with pride.

Look at the joy of our mother! She receives the rewards for her faithfulness and her humility. Let us rejoice too for having a mother who has already reached the end of the pilgrimage in the faith. Our desire today reaches her, so might remain awoken in us the thought of the Kingdom of God, and the will to proceed towards the heaven in the company of all the other faithful believers.

We are in an environment which tries in many ways to distract us, to attract our attention towards many futile things in order to avert our attention from the really important things, to keep us bound to its attractive and disappointing answers to our dreams and desires. Today's feast is a moment of truth, an alarm bell, before we let ourselves being cheated completely. Our heart is made for the heavens, and the goods of earth will never satisfy it. The mother of Jesus helps us too with her prayer of praise to God to focus mind and heart on Him. Mary's prayer which we can hear today, has been made by the Church its own for the hour of the vespers every day. Every day we unite our voice to the mother’s voice, almost as a guarantee and the deposit towards reaching the goal ourselves, there where she is waiting for us. Our voice, in unison with the church which is suffering in the world, says the prayer of the mother of Jesus: in this way she continues to help us reject the lie of wealth, power, pride, impurity and vanity which is making us only suffer, and is helping us desire and express true joy, the one which is never taken from the heart of the children: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”. This joy, told by our humble, but decisive, voices, sings the victory over the last enemy: we are not afraid anymore, not even of death: it is the occasion to make ourselves welcomed by the mother, who is ready to introduce us, enriched by her hug, to her Son Jesus!