The Mystery of the Assumption
A Sermon by the Reverend Peter De Franco, Jr.
Interim Rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, New Jersey
When was the last time you saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars? Not even in Times Square would you see such a sight, unless it might be on Halloween or if you were high on something, but she is not the person whom you would gingerly meet on the way. Yet she is the person whom we encounter with the opening antiphon of today’s liturgy: A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
With this language, strange and unworldly, we enter into the world of the apocalyptic. No, this is not the world of those misguided souls who would hasten the coming of the end of the world that they might catch the greatest 4th of July fireworks display. No, this is not the world of those who would more quickly pray for atomic war so as it have the world’s international scene fit their misconstrued notions of the end of times.
No, this is the world of those who are tired of the politics of this world and know that only God can usher in a new world order, and that world order does not need an atomic bomb blast but the gentle wind of the Holy Spirit to cast down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly. An apocalyptic world view pushes us to edge of the symbolic world, a world where image defines a deeper reality and where flights of fantasy take us into a world of hopes, deeper than the power of the human imagination but not craftier then the might of the divine heart. An apocalyptic world view takes us into the season of Easter, with promises of new life being formed from the ashes of death and the reality of God’s new order formed in the potter’s hand from the clay of the old creation.
In an apocalyptic world view, we behold a world on the brink of disaster rescued by the divine EMT who hastens into the fire and snatches us from the foe. In an apocalyptic world view, we experience a God in the birth pangs of a new creation, crying aloud as a new child enters into the world, a new child with all the hopes that child brings. In an apocalyptic world view, we encounter the breaking down of one world as God creates a new world, the sunset that changes to dawn, the rain gives way to the sun, and the mourning veil is lifted.
This apocalyptic world view is enacted in signs this day: a statue is carried around a church in procession as a sign of the glorification of a woman with the garments like the sun, stars forming her crown and the moon as her foot stool. We process this day, though in the role of the accompanying angels. The angels come as sure signs that we are dealing with an apocalyptic stage for wherever angels appear the wonders of God’s new world soon dawn.
While an apocalyptic vision places us in the world of the symbolic, we stand at the place where the symbol is giving way to reality. At the point where the symbolic gives way to the real stands the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That resurrection is the moment of breakthrough when the birth pangs of God give way to the new creation of the Christ, the head of that mystical person emerging from the birth channel even as through baptism and the Eucharist the body continues to take form and emerges through the font, the womb of the church, to the breast of the church where the faithful are fed with the milk of the Eucharist. We receive these gifts of new life in hope and so we receive them symbolically, yet with symbols so rich in grace that we call them sacraments since they effect in reality what they proclaim symbolically.
With the assumption, we stand on the other side of that symbolic world, where the language of a new world order gives way to a bodily entrance into the reign of God. The icons of the Assumption describe this reality: the dead body of the virgin lies on a bier as her new body that of an infant lies in the arms of her son -- A divine reversal of roles as the child gives birth to the mother and the mother suckles at the child’s breast. With this mystery of the assumption, we are ushered into the realm of the spirit where the new creation begins, where new life shapes our souls, and the promises of God for the redemption of our bodies begins takes its place even in our very flesh.
The assumption is that moment when the promises become real for one member of the mystical body of Christ and so assure us all that the symbolic world indeed is giving way to reality. That reality is the resurrection of the mystical body of Christ and its formation in the world across the boundaries of time and space. It is a reality that we form even this day, but we form in faith and in hope, heirs of the promise that we hold this day in clay vessels as we await the redemption of our bodies.
Mary has passed from the symbolic into the real. That is the first meaning of this day’s feast. We, in the heat of the summer, oppressed by the heat of our lives and the weight of its deep humidity, find renewed hope for the redemption of our own bodies.
We stand this day in hope, even as we look to heaven to behold a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
A Sermon by the Reverend Peter De Franco, Jr.
Interim Rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, New Jersey
When was the last time you saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars? Not even in Times Square would you see such a sight, unless it might be on Halloween or if you were high on something, but she is not the person whom you would gingerly meet on the way. Yet she is the person whom we encounter with the opening antiphon of today’s liturgy: A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
With this language, strange and unworldly, we enter into the world of the apocalyptic. No, this is not the world of those misguided souls who would hasten the coming of the end of the world that they might catch the greatest 4th of July fireworks display. No, this is not the world of those who would more quickly pray for atomic war so as it have the world’s international scene fit their misconstrued notions of the end of times.
No, this is the world of those who are tired of the politics of this world and know that only God can usher in a new world order, and that world order does not need an atomic bomb blast but the gentle wind of the Holy Spirit to cast down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly. An apocalyptic world view pushes us to edge of the symbolic world, a world where image defines a deeper reality and where flights of fantasy take us into a world of hopes, deeper than the power of the human imagination but not craftier then the might of the divine heart. An apocalyptic world view takes us into the season of Easter, with promises of new life being formed from the ashes of death and the reality of God’s new order formed in the potter’s hand from the clay of the old creation.
In an apocalyptic world view, we behold a world on the brink of disaster rescued by the divine EMT who hastens into the fire and snatches us from the foe. In an apocalyptic world view, we experience a God in the birth pangs of a new creation, crying aloud as a new child enters into the world, a new child with all the hopes that child brings. In an apocalyptic world view, we encounter the breaking down of one world as God creates a new world, the sunset that changes to dawn, the rain gives way to the sun, and the mourning veil is lifted.
This apocalyptic world view is enacted in signs this day: a statue is carried around a church in procession as a sign of the glorification of a woman with the garments like the sun, stars forming her crown and the moon as her foot stool. We process this day, though in the role of the accompanying angels. The angels come as sure signs that we are dealing with an apocalyptic stage for wherever angels appear the wonders of God’s new world soon dawn.
While an apocalyptic vision places us in the world of the symbolic, we stand at the place where the symbol is giving way to reality. At the point where the symbolic gives way to the real stands the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That resurrection is the moment of breakthrough when the birth pangs of God give way to the new creation of the Christ, the head of that mystical person emerging from the birth channel even as through baptism and the Eucharist the body continues to take form and emerges through the font, the womb of the church, to the breast of the church where the faithful are fed with the milk of the Eucharist. We receive these gifts of new life in hope and so we receive them symbolically, yet with symbols so rich in grace that we call them sacraments since they effect in reality what they proclaim symbolically.
With the assumption, we stand on the other side of that symbolic world, where the language of a new world order gives way to a bodily entrance into the reign of God. The icons of the Assumption describe this reality: the dead body of the virgin lies on a bier as her new body that of an infant lies in the arms of her son -- A divine reversal of roles as the child gives birth to the mother and the mother suckles at the child’s breast. With this mystery of the assumption, we are ushered into the realm of the spirit where the new creation begins, where new life shapes our souls, and the promises of God for the redemption of our bodies begins takes its place even in our very flesh.
The assumption is that moment when the promises become real for one member of the mystical body of Christ and so assure us all that the symbolic world indeed is giving way to reality. That reality is the resurrection of the mystical body of Christ and its formation in the world across the boundaries of time and space. It is a reality that we form even this day, but we form in faith and in hope, heirs of the promise that we hold this day in clay vessels as we await the redemption of our bodies.
Mary has passed from the symbolic into the real. That is the first meaning of this day’s feast. We, in the heat of the summer, oppressed by the heat of our lives and the weight of its deep humidity, find renewed hope for the redemption of our own bodies.
We stand this day in hope, even as we look to heaven to behold a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
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