The Assumption of Mary

 

In Pietà the Welsh poet and Anglican priest R. S. Thomas (1913-2000) reflected on the deep togetherness of mother and son, so famously sculped by Michelangelo. The strong bond between a mother and son is reflected in the Gospels and the early church reflected on the deep obedience of Mary the disciple to the mission of God and her Son our Saviour, giving Mary a special place in worship and prayer.

 

St. John presents Mary as the model disciple, who teaches us to “do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). St. Luke reflects that the Holy Spirit infused both mother and son at the very moment of the child’s conception.

 

Thomas’s poem expresses the conviction of the church that Mary is not just an instrument but that the incarnation of the Son in the womb of the virgin was the preeminent work of God.

 

The importance of Mary as mother reminds us who we all are, beloved children of God and that we are called to act as the beloved children of God in the world.

 

Here are the two small stanzas of Thomas’s  poem Pieta. The scene is Calvary, but the time is both before his death at his birth and ourselves in the present.

Pieta

Always the same hills

Crown the horizon

Remote witnesses of the still scene.

And in the foreground

The tall Cross,

Sombre, untenanted,

Aches for the Body

That is back in the cradle

Of a maid’s arms.

R.S. Thomas

 

In 431 C.E., the Council of Ephesus proclaimed Mary to be the Mother of God as Arius, later declared a heretic, had declared that Jesus had not always been the Son of God so the church responded by rooting his identity, and therefore that of his mother, in the pure plan of God maintaining that there was never a moment when he was not the Son of God. So, even in the womb and at his birth, the Virgin was the God-bearer, the Mother of God.

 

Belief in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary arose very early in the history of the church because of this understanding. The idea was that as both belong fully to God, nothing separates mother and Son. Her assumption is an echo of his resurrection.