The Assumption

Peasant Times-Dispatch Issue 12

Hello Again!

Dear Readers,

Welcome to Issue 12 of the Peasant Times-Dispatch! This is an important milestone for me, as it represents a newsletter-year, one issue for every month. It doesn’t coincide with my actual Substack Anniversary because I’ve taken a couple breaks here and there and experimented with my writing-model, so there’s a bit of an offset but here we are! Issue 12 is finally here. If you read back issues once a month, you could read through the whole year!

Very happy to have you along for the ride with me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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There’s Something About Mary

The Assumption is a feast that is all about Mary. Mary is an important person to Catholics and is respected and revered across many Christian denominations. So before we get too deep into the Assumption itself, the reason for the season, let’s refresh our understanding about Mary and her place in Salvation History.

Mary is one of two people mentioned by name in the Nicene Creed, excluding persons of the Trinity. Mary is mentioned first:

For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

The second person mentioned is Pontius Pilate, in the sentence immediately following.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

The Nicene Creed is important because it is a brief summary of our faith, and while many people may not be Catholic, most Christians can agree on the Nicene Creed as a good summary.

Mary is important because she is the vessel through which the Incarnation of the second person of the trinity, Jesus Christ, came into the world. Pontius Pilate is important because he is the person who ordered that the Incarnation exit the world. These two people book-end Christ’s Incarnation.

Mary then is the Mother of God and that office is important and implies a lot of things. The theology of Mary covers a lot of ground, so let me steer this ship towards the Assumption.

My priest back in Virginia once described Mary as “Humanities solitary boast”—she was as human as you or I, but she was perfectly human—immaculately conceived¹. That means, among other things, that she was uniquely holy, as she was given the honor of bearing God Himself in her womb.

The story of The Assumption, then, is the story of how we care for Holy people, places, and things.

Holy Nouns

Think for a moment about your most prized possession. I’m not getting at anything spiritual yet so if you’re trying to think past me and going for “soul” then—you’re correct, but not what I’m going for. Your grandfathers cufflinks, your mothers jewelry, A photo of your treasured family pet, a signed baseball—what are the things you treasure and care about?

You probably put them on a place of prominence in your house, or a place of security. It’s either highly visible, because it is something precious which you want to share; or it is highly safe, because you don’t want any harm to come to it.

What else is precious to us? Our lives, our families, our homes. We care very much about each of these. Our homes, we want to be safe and comfortable. Our families, we want to do well—we brag about little things our family members do because we are proud of them. Our lives—we work hard to take care of ourselves.

Imagine any of these precious people, places, or things being covered in mud. Horrible! There would be something undignified in that, right? The mud is unbefitting of these precious things. Their dignity is not reduced in anyway—but hidden until they can be cleaned up and polished.

Let’s pivot now, and talk about spiritual nouns. What is precious to God? Himself, of course—not in a selfish way, but as a Trinity of three persons sharing one divine nature, God’s self understanding is expression and love in and of itself.

But the second person of the trinity took on a human nature in addition to his divine nature—hypostatic union. He was given his flesh through Mary. We honor and revere our mothers, and it’s even a commandment God gave to Moses—honor thy mother and thy father. So we know Jesus would have greatly honored his Holy and Immaculate, sinless mother.

How could God protect Mary, keep her safe or keep her visible? Wouldn’t the stain of death be a little undignified for someone as sinless and perfect as Mary, God’s own mother?

Ascend Or Assume?

There is an intuitive point that is easy to miss, but which I think American Sign Language makes exceptional clear.

It’s hard to explain without images but bear with me.

With your right hand, hold your hand flat and turn it facing palm-up. With your left hand, make a V, and put the two open tips of the V on the flat surface of your right hand, like they are little legs.

In American Sign Language, the word for “Ascension” is to lift your left hand upside down V away from the flat surface of your right hand. Your left hand “ascended”. The word for “Assumption” is to lift your flat, right hand up with your left hand standing on it still.

At the feast of the Ascension, we celebrate that Christ ascended under his own power into Heaven.

At the feast of the Assumption, we celebrate that God assumed—that is, took Mary up—and carried her body and soul up to Heaven².

This is the answer to the question of How God would keep her safe. She was too beautiful, too special, too glorious to let Death hold her for any amount of time—so after her natural death, God picked her up and carried her home.

WHY God would do this is the same answer as to why you and I treat our holy and precious things differently than other things. Because they are special to us, and Mary was special to God: She is the only person to have the title of Mother of God.

TL;DR

Mary is the mother of God, and God loves his mother just like we love our mothers and mother-figures. Today, August 15th, is the Feast of the Assumption, where we remember in a special way Mary who was precious to God and who is precious to us; and it’s a good reminder to think about how we care for those holy and precious people, places, and things in our lives.

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Thank you for reading! God bless you all!

Ad Jesum Per Mariam

1. The Immaculate Conception might be a point of disagreement among various Christian sects, but that’s not the point of this post! Are you interested in learning more about the Immaculate Conception and Marian Theology? Let me know—happy to discuss more in depth in a future post!

2. It’s neat to point out here that Catholics LOVE relics and Catholics LOVE Mary. We have relics with bone fragments, dried blood, clothes, and implements that we have received from saints. We have a few incorrupt bodies too, which are kept safe. Not once has anyone ever found any relics for Mary. There’s places they believe she lived. But no one has found Mary’s body, and given the fascination of the early Church with relics, it seems like something we should have, if they existed. But since she was assumed, nothing is there!