RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS
Feast of the Assumption
Last night our school and parish community celebrated the Feast of the Assumption. Thank you to all those who volunteered to take on a leading role for this Mass, both staff and students. This special mass acknowledged the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary when we remember when Mary was taken (“assumed”) into heaven, body and soul, after she died. You will not find this story in the Bible. However, a tradition handed down from the earliest days of the Church says that Mary died in Jerusalem and was buried in a tomb. But when the apostles opened the tomb again, her body was gone. Why would God take Mary’s body and soul into heaven? In part because Mary is special to God: she said “yes” to becoming the mother of Jesus. But God also wanted to show us that one day, all of us will share in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Mary is the first person in the Church to experience the resurrection in its fullness.
The Story of the Assumption: When the apostles heard that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was going to be taken from this world, they gathered at her house and kept watch with her. And behold, the Lord Jesus did not let the one in whose womb he had dwelled see the corruption of death;
but instead, he came with his angels and took her up to heaven as the beginning and image of the Church coming to perfection, and a sign of sure hope and comfort to God’s people.—from The Illuminated Rosary
This year, the theme for the season is “To hope and act with Creation”. Amid the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, many are beginning to despair and suffer from eco-anxiety. As people of faith we are called to lift the hope inspired by our faith, the hope of the resurrection. This is not a hope without action but one embodied in concrete actions of prayer and preaching, service and solidarity.
