The Feast of the Assumption, held on 15 August each year, celebrates our belief that at the end of Mary’s life on earth her body and soul were taken up (‘assumed‘) into heaven by God.
What Mary has experienced is essentially what has been promised to all of us: a resurrection of our bodies at the end of time and life in heaven in the presence of almighty God, body and soul together.
The idea of our future existence as a union of body & soul in heaven rather than just an immortal spirit is an important one for Christianity. It is something we say we believe each Sunday when we profess the Creed.
In a way, Mary can be taken as a role model for how to be a good disciple. In her life she says a radical ‘Yes’ to God, when invited through the Angel Gabriel to co-operate with His plan to save all people.
In any of the gospel stories Mary is to be found firmly focused on Jesus. ‘Do whatever He tells you,’ she recommends to those wanting more wine at the wedding feast of Cana. At the foot of the Cross, it is Mary who stays standing, filled with anguish at the sight of her dying son.
The Feast of the Assumption, then, is given to us not to glorify Mary as such but to provoke us into reflection: do we say ‘Yes’ to God in our lives, or is it more likely a mixture of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, depending on what suits at the time?
Can we really claim to be near Christ, and willing to stay near, when faced with difficulties and disappointments, confused or alone, in suffering and even death?
And do we really believe what we profess each Sunday Mass: that one day we too will be received body and soul into heaven?
Mary’s Assumption assures us of our dignity and our destiny as followers of the Lord. It is ‘a sign of sure hope and comfort’ (as the Preface puts it) of what will face each of us one day. It is also a challenge to live more radically the life of the genuine disciple.
Maximilian Kolbe was born in Poland in 1894. He joined the Franciscan Order and was ordained priest in 1918. His original name was Raymund but he was given the name of Maximilian upon entering his Order.
His work in Poland included founding a number of Franciscan monasteries, a radio station and setting up a monthly newspaper.
In 1930 he was sent to Japan where, for the next six years, he founded another monastery, this time in Nagasaki. He also established another newspaper and set up a seminary.
At the time, Kolbe was criticised for the location of his monastery, set as it was on a mountainside. Some Japanese who followed the Shinto religion felt it wasn’t in keeping with nature. Interestingly, when Nagasaki was destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945, Kolbe’s monastery was one of the few buildings to survive – precisely because of its location.
Kolbe returned to Poland in 1936 and was there for the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, Maximilian sheltered around 2,000 Jews trying to avoid capture.
In 1941 Kolbe himself was arrested by the Gestapo and after three months in prison was transferred to the concentration camp at Auschwitz.
In July of that year, three prisoners managed to escape from the camp and, as a deterrent to others, the Commandant ordered ten men to be picked at random and starved to death.
As the ten prisoners were being led off to an underground bunker, one of them cried out for his wife and children. Immediately, Maximilian Kolbe, a single man with no family of his own, volunteered to take his place.
During the process of starvation, Kolbe is said to have comforted the other dying prisoners, leading them in prayer. When after two weeks only Maximilian was still alive, the prison guards speeded things up by killing him with a lethal injection.
In 1982 Maximilian Kolbe was canonized as a martyr by Pope John Paul II. At the ceremony were the family of the man, Franciszek Gajowniczek, whom he had saved from starvation.
Maximilian’s canonization as a martyr caused some controversy at the time. Although Kolbe’s death was heroic he was not killed specifically because he was a Christian, and therefore arguably not technically a martyr.
However, Pope John Paul II wished to make the point that the Nazi holocaust, primarily directed at the Jewish people, was an act of hatred against humanity and against faith and in that sense St Maximilian died upholding the values of Christianity.
St Maximilian Kolbe’s Feast day is on 14 August and will be celebrated with Mass in the Convent in March at 10.00am.
At first, maybe this sounded like a strange choice for our book club. Was it just for women? What about all the men in the gospels? What was an ‘interactive bible meditation anyway’? So we began reading and shared our reactions to what we read.
The book is structured with groups in mind, but can equally well be read by individuals. Each chapter focuses on one female character from the gospels. The reader is given the relevant references to the Bible passages and invited to read these again, never mind how familiar you already are with the story.
Martha serves while her sister sits and listens
Then there is the ‘Monologue’: the main character tells her own story as though she was recounting what she had done, said and thought at the time , and we are invited to enter into this story in our imagination and apply any lessons we might have learnt to our everyday lives.
Finally each chapter ends with a series of questions and suggestions for discussion.
This book opens up quite a different way to ponder the Scriptures and apply what we understand God to be saying in our lives.
The use of ‘imaginative contemplation’ is a tried and tested way to pray with biblical texts, of course, and for many it provides an opportunity (as St Ignatius of Loyola taught his early companions) to encounter God anew.
So who are some of these women who speak to us? Obviously there are the central characters of Mary and Elizabeth together with, for example, the Samaritan Women who met Jesus at the well.
Mary Magdalene
There is the Widow who gave all she has, and Lazurus’s two sisters, Mary and Martha; and, of course, Mary Magdalene.
The gospels were obviously written by men, and during a very different society from today. Inevitably, sometimes the women’s voices have got lost or been hidden. This book redresses the balance a little by providing us with a new perspective.
Are there any less than positive aspects of this book? Some stories resonate more with one person that another, and often our group deliberately chose a character out of the chapter sequence.
A problem with each chapter being designed to ‘stand alone’ is that there is the irritating repetition of certain discussion points and/or instructions.
However, overall, the value of deepening our understanding of the Bible, and hearing God’s Word afresh, enables the reader to overcome such small glitches.
The book club enjoyed discussing it. Why not try it for yourselves?
In a special message to Catholics across Britain and Ireland for the annual Day for Life, Pope Francis has emphasised the need to care for life from conception to natural end.
In his message, he says that all life has inestimable value ‘even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation, made in his own image, destined to live for ever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect’.
He has promised his prayers that ‘Day for Life will help to ensure that human life always receives the protection that it is due.‘
Over half-a-million leaflets have been sent to parishes in England and Wales in readiness for Day for Life – Sunday, 28 July.
The theme of the Day is ‘Care for Life – It’s Worth It’ taken from a homily preached by Cardinal Bergoglio in 2005 during a Mass in honour of the protector of Pregnant Women, Saint Raymond Nonnatus.
Within this homily, the now Pope Francis said:
“All of us must care for life, cherish life, with tenderness, warmth…to give life is to open (our) heart, and to care for life is to (give oneself) in tenderness and warmth for others, to have concern in my heart for others.
“Caring for life from the beginning to the end. What a simple thing, what a beautiful thing… So, go forth and don’t be discouraged. Care for life. It’s worth it.”
This year’s Day for Life focuses on care for unborn children and their mothers; care for people who are elderly and care for those who are suicidal and their families.
One of its key aims is to build an environment of compassion and care that nurtures and sustains life, even in the most challenging of human events and personal circumstances.
You can find out more about this year’s Day for Life at dayforlife.org
Have you ever wanted to destroy your enemies? Probably, at some stage, we have all been through such a stage of emotion. However, have you ever thought about destroying your enemies by making them your friends?
“I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend,” said Abraham Lincoln; but it’s much easier said than done.
Turning others into friends
This is the sort of work each of us, as people of faith, are called to do: not necessarily converting enemies as such, but perhaps aiming to turn into friends those “others” who may so easily become perceived to be our enemies.
Theologian Sally McFague once said:
We, all of us, are being called to do something unprecedented. We are being called to think about ‘everything that is’, for we now know that everything is interrelated and that the well-being of each is connected to the well-being of the whole.
The statement above poses a great challenge to us because, most of the time, as different faith communities we become focused on the uniqueness of our claims about God. We busy ourselves defending our positions. This isn’t bad in itself and, in fact, can be essential for our sense of identity, belonging and hope. But it should not be the only focus of our being. Spiritual well-being is essential but so is physical, social, economic and environmental well-being too.
Thanks to the 21st century’s increasingly globalised and inter-connected world, we have to deal with something quite unprecedented: the huge scale rubbing shoulders of different languages, cultures and religious beliefs.
Engage to enrich
We should not assume that by engaging with people of different beliefs to ours the uniqueness of our faith must somehow get compromised. Inter-faith work is not about negotiating away our differences. In fact it is about asserting and affirming our differences; but in such a way so that it enriches rather than creates conflict.
Inter-faith work is not about reducing our beliefs to a thin line where we all merge into one. Nor is it an attempt to unify us all into one world religion. It is about co-operation across faiths and cultures and peaceful co-existence.
We cannot have peace until we have agreed to talk to one another; to address issues that confront us and strain our relationships from time to time.
No Peace without Dialogue
Hans Kung, the Catholic theologian and the founder of Global Ethic Foundation, once said, “No peace among the nations without peace among the religions. No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions.”
It is said that from the 250 conflicts and wars of the 20th century, each had a religious component. Watching the news these days in our own century, it sometimes feels as if we stand on the brink of human extinction.
Break out of our places of worship
Inside a Mandir, a Hindu Temple.
It would seem that now, more than ever, is a time for us to break out from our respective places of worship (the Church, Mandir, Synagogue, Gurdwara or Mosque) and meet the other; talk to the other; develop ideas with the other for the common good of us all.
There is an apt quote from American novelist and social critic, James Baldwin:
For nothing is fixed……….Earth is always shifting, light is always changing. The sea rises, the light fails, and we cling to each other. The moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
Following incidents like 9/11, 7/7 or the Woolwich Murder, people like us need to do even more and work even harder in order to boost the growth of mutual confidence, trust and goodwill amongst us all, across faiths and cultures!
How we think matters
March and Wisbech may not face the same problems and opportunities as those found in Luton and Leicester or Bedford and Bradford; but the toil of engaging with each other, and talking to each other, with working and living towards harmonious co-existence with each other, will still bear its fruit irrespective of location.
And it doesn’t matter if you don’t have that many people of other faiths and cultures living nearby. You have your opinion. You have your attitudes. What and how you think also matters.
It’s small groups that change the world
Anthropologist Margaret Mead put it succinctly: “Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world; Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.
David Jonathan (far right) with members and guests of the Wisbech Interfaith Forum
David Jonathan (Johny) is the co-ordinator of “Grassroots”, a Christian ecumenical programme founded in Luton which aims to promote inclusion and a spirituality of justice and peace through dialogue between the Christian churches and other faith communities. Johny is also a member of the Luton Council of Faiths.
This article is based upon a talk given at the Wisbech Inter-Faith Forum on 5 June 2013.
The Feast of the Assumption, held on 15 August each year, celebrates our belief that at the end of Mary’s life on earth her body and soul were taken up (‘assumed‘) into heaven by God.
