Mass this morning had a deliciously conspiratorial feel about it. One of London’s major rail termini was barely a hundred yards away, with its fifteen platforms heaving with thousands of humourless commuters, but inside the church there was a heavenly hush — there can hardly have been a quieter place in the whole capital — and half a dozen of us gathered in honour of the Mother of God. The priest said in his homily that the Assumption of Mary is the really the last word in the defeat of death and sin and worldly powers, because if Mary, whose nature was entirely human, can be raised into heaven, then there is hope for the rest of us. ‘She shares in the victory of her Son’.
These words of the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer struck me with their beauty and understated joy:
It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give you thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God,
through Christ our Lord.
For today the Virgin Mother of God
was assumed into heaven
as the beginning and image
of your Church’s coming to perfection
and a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people;
rightly you would not allow her
to see the corruption of the tomb
since from her own body she marvellously brought forth
your incarnate Son, the Author of all life.
Happy Feast of the Assumption!
