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"The Assumption"

Celebrazioni per il sessantesimo anniversario della proclamazione
del dogma dell’Assunzione della Beata Vergine Maria

Roma, Sala dei Cardinali, 29 0ttobre 2010

If it is true, how true, that exists in the Church a vital and intrinsic relationship between the "lex loans" and the "lex orandi "even for the great feast of the Assumption can not help but root on the liturgical expression since the founding of the faith.
For this reason it is very important to listen to the words with which the Venerable Pius XII , 1 November 1950, solemnly defined the dogma of the Assumption of Mary: "In this way - the Pope says - the revered Mother of God, so mysteriously united to Jesus Christ from all eternity with the same decree of predestination, in her Immaculate Conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences, in the end, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, she should be preserved from the corruption of the grave and conquered death, as her Son, might be taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven, where it shines Queen at the right hand of His Son, the immortal King of ages "(Apostolic Constitution. Munificentissimus Deus , AAS 42 (1950), 768-769). With this definition
Pius XII gave him strength dogmatic as the Christian people immediately claimed to believe, even through prayer and liturgy. In fact, as early as the fifth century is attested in Jerusalem, in the calendar of Jerusalem, the memory of a Marian feast 15 August. It will be this liturgical feast that will change soon, from generic memory of the Mother of God in celebration of her Assumption.
But it is not my task here, or deepen the content of faith from a theological point of view, nor to consider the historical route of the Marian feast over the centuries. I asked, piuttosto, di addentrarmi nell’espressione liturgica di questa grande solennità mariana, senza dimenticare l’orizzonte di fede da cui essa promana.
1. L’immagine del cielo
Al riguardo mi servo di un’immagine molto bella e suggestiva che, in modo ricorrente, il Santo Padre  Benedetto XVI  usa per illustrare il significato profondo della liturgia della Chiesa. Mi riferisco all’immagine del cielo che si affaccia sulla terra e della terra che viene come rapita verso il cielo. L’immagine citata, nella sua duplice direzione, appare quanto mai appropriata e vera proprio per la ricorrenza liturgica dell’Assunta. I brani della Scrittura che la Chiesa offre al nostro ascolto il 15 agosto, come anche l’eucologia, ovvero l’insieme delle preghiere che danno forma e accompagnano la celebrazione, sono la testimonianza più eloquente di quanto si va affermando. E, d’altra parte, non adombra forse proprio questa immagine dell’attuale Pontefice la definizione di  Pio XII , che proclama Maria Santissima “innalzata in anima e corpo alla gloria del cielo”?
Vale la pena ricordare che con il termine “cielo” non si vuole certo fare riferimento a un qualche luogo dell’universo geograficamente posto sopra di noi. Ci riferiamo a una realtà molto più bella e più grande: a Dio che, nel suo infinito amore per noi, he came close to us so as not to surrender even after death. So when we say "heaven" tell the world of God and his eternity, the mystery of death and resurrection of the Lord in which, through grace, we introduced all of us. "Brethren, Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who died," St. Paul reminds us in the passage from First Corinthians, just August 15. As the Reverend John Paul II stated, "By the mystery of the sky, there were definitively accomplished in Mary all the effects of mediation of Christ the Redeemer of the world and Risen Lord" (Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Mater , 41 ).
However, this remains insufficient to explain the meaning of the term "heaven". Indeed, it is the "sky" of our faith to accommodate our entire life. Benedict XVI affirmed in ' homily for the Solemnity of the Assumption this year : "We exist in the imagination and love of God exists in all our reality, not only in our" shadow. " Our peace, our hope, our peace is based on this: in God, in His thoughts and His love, not only survives a 'shadow' of ourselves, but in him, in his creative love, we we stored and introduced in all our lives, with our whole being in eternity. And 'His love that conquers death and gives us eternity, and it is this love that we call "heaven": God is so great to have room for us. And the man Jesus, who is both God is for us a guarantee that is-being-man and God can exist and live forever in each other. This means that each of us will not continue to exist only part that we are, so to speak, torn, while others go broke, it means rather that God knows and loves the whole person, what we are. And God in His eternity welcomes this now, in our lives, made up of suffering and love, hope, joy and sadness, grows and becomes. The whole man, his life is taken by God and in Him receives purified eternity. Dear Friends! I think this is a truth that must be filled with deep joy. Christianity not only announced a few salvation of the soul in an imprecise beyond, in which everything in this world there was precious and dear would be deleted, but promises eternal life, "the life of the world to come": anything that is precious and dear to us will be ruined, but it will find fulfillment in God. "
2. The sky overlooking the land and the land who is abducted into the sky
the light of what has been said, we can consider three biblical images, offered to us by the liturgy, to understand more in the celebration of the Assumption, the sky onto the earth and the earth is kidnapped skyward.
- "The woman clothed with the sun"
The first reading of the Mass of the day from the Book of Revelation, is offered to us thus: "He opened the temple of God in heaven and appeared in the temple the ark of his covenant. A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars " (11, 19 - 12, 1).
The woman clothed with the sun is the one who was assumed into heaven body and soul, as finally victorious over sin and death. With her truly heaven on earth overlooking the liturgy and shines even more dimension to this essential and constitutive. In the evening Mass on the eve of the Solemnity of the Church makes us listen to the words of the Apostle Paul: "Death has been swallowed up in victory: Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is thy sting? ". These words, the expression of a challenge that has now won, echoing the image of the Assumption, for the evil which now no longer no chance of victory and death has no more sting. "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (I Cor 15, 26): what is the "not" yet "for us is the" already "of Mary. E ', its skyline overlooking the pilgrimage of our life. And our life finds its joy orientation toward the sky, the momentum to combat all forms of sin and evil, the desire of the splendor of grace.
- "The New Eve"
The Church in the First Vespers of the solemnity of the liturgy, sang: "A woman has closed the door of heaven, a woman opens the noi. Maria, madre del Signore”.
In tal modo il cielo che si affaccia sulla terra dona ali d’aquila alla speranza della Chiesa, che prega così nella colletta della Messa vespertina nella vigilia della solennità: “O Dio, che volgendo lo sguardo all’umiltà della Vergine Maria l’hai innalzata alla sublime dignità di madre del tuo unico Figlio fatto uomo e oggi l’hai coronata di gloria incomparabile, fa’ che, inseriti nel mistero di salvezza, anche noi possiamo per sua intercessione giungere fino a te nella gloria del cielo”. E’ la stessa Chiesa che nel prefazio della Messa del giorno ancora canta: “Oggi la Vergine Maria, madre di Cristo, tuo Figlio e nostro Signore, was assumed in heavenly glory. In her beginning and image of the Church, have revealed the completion of the mystery of salvation, and you did shine for your people, pilgrims on earth, a sign of sure hope and consolation. " In
Mary the new Eve, the first fruits and renewed vision of humanity's salvation, heaven comes to us in anticipation of what we all desire and hope, a foretaste of the beauty lost and always sought that is holiness. Send
euchological quoted, referring to Mary crowned, to postpone to another Marian feast in the month of August, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, now located in the liturgical calendar seven days After the solemnity of the Assumption. Thus we are led to remember that, in heaven, Mary is Queen of the Angels and Saints, and that, by virtue of this unique position of unique strength is also his intercession with God on our behalf. Also look for this very reason the Assumption means to find and raise hope.
- "blessed among women"
What are the roots of the victory over death early in Mary? It is no coincidence that the page of Luke's Gospel proclaimed on the day of the Assumption, in both forms of the Roman Rite, is one in which the SS. Virgin is declared blessed because of his faith. "Blessed she who believed in what the Lord said, "exclaims loudly at Elizabeth's younger cousin.
The roots of that victory are prodigious in their faith of the Virgin of Nazareth. A faith which is obedience to the Word of God and complete surrender to the initiative and divine action. Thus the assumption of the Virgin Mary is the culmination of his faith, the journey of faith that she means to the Church and each of us, of that road already introducing spaces of heaven on this earth, because it makes the home of a man bit 'more like the eternal abode of God for which we seek. Reciting the
prayer "Our Father" every time we repeat the great invocation: "... Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven so on earth." The kingdom of God comes to us, an area of \u200b\u200bsky opens itself to contemplate the extent that the earth is achieved in the will of God, faith is lived in filial obedience to the will of the Lord. Mary, by virtue of his exemplary faith opens the gates of heaven and we feel the desire to follow his own faith journey of our lives because the land may already be a foretaste of heaven.
3. The expressions of popular piety
enrichment of the above, I think at this point to recall some significant manifestations of popular piety arose in the time around the liturgical Solemnity of the Assumption. I think it important that the final enrichment, considering the way they deliver Directory on Popular Piety and Liturgy : "In affirming the primacy of the liturgy," the summit toward which the activity of the Church, along with the source from which all her power flows "(Sacrosanctum Concilium , 10), the Second Vatican Council also recalled that" the spiritual life is not limited to participation in the liturgy "(12). A conferma di ciò, in questo contesto è certamente significativo ricordare l’insegnamento sempre valido del Venerabile  Pio XII  nella Lettera enciclica sulla Liturgia  Mediator Dei , il 20 novembre 1947: “Senza dubbio la preghiera liturgica, essendo pubblica supplica dell’inclita Sposa di Gesù Cristo, ha una dignità maggiore di quella delle preghiere private; ma questa superiorità non vuol dire che fra questi due generi di preghiera ci sia contrasto od opposizione. Tutti e due si fondano e si armonizzano perché animate da un unico spirito… e tendono allo stesso scopo” (n. 31).
Non si dimentichi, infine, quanto  Benedetto XVI  ha scritto di recente riguardo alla pietà popolare, rivolgendosi ai Seminaristi di tutto il mondo: “Attraverso di essa, la fede è entrata nel cuore degli uomini, è diventata parte dei loro sentimenti, delle loro abitudini, del loro comune sentire e vivere. Perciò la pietà popolare è un grande patrimonio della Chiesa. La fede si è fatta carne e sangue. Certamente la pietà popolare deve essere sempre purificata, riferita al centro, ma merita il nostro amore, ed essa rende noi stessi in modo pienamente reale «Popolo di Dio»” ( Lettera ai Seminaristi ,  18 ottobre 2010).
Vengo così a ricordare due manifestazioni della pietà popolare che, in definitiva, se vissute correttamente, scaturiscono dalla liturgia dell’Assunta e a essa riconducono.
- Storicamente, a dare un particolare rilievo alla festività dell’Assunta contribuì certamente “la processione ordinata da Papa Sergio, che a Roma si svolgeva con una solennità e uno splendore incomparabili - come ricorda il Righetti, nella sua “Storia liturgica” - e nella quale la famosa immagine acheropita del Salvatore veniva portata dal Laterano alla basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore”. La processione, a motivo di vari abusi che si erano verificati nel corso del tempo, venne abolita al tempo di Pio V. Tuttavia essa è rimasta many places in Italy, especially in Lazio, who had imitated by Rome. On the evening before they form two processions, one with the image of the Savior, the other with that of the Holy Virgin, a move that meeting to another. When the two processions met, the carriers of the two images will exchange the sign of peace, the celebrant offers incense to the sacred images, the right to take the Christ, the Virgin left. And so, in procession, we go to church dedicated to Our Lady, where the ritual ends with a solemn blessing.
is not difficult to see in this double procession that takes place in the encounter of the two sacred images, the popular expression the truth about Christ in the mystery of the Assumption of Mary into heaven in body and soul. And, on the other hand, the joint input of the two images in the church draws entering Paradise of the SS. Virgin, ultimately, the gaping of heaven on earth.
- The other manifestation of popular piety worthy of note is that the blessings, for example, flowers and herbs that, since the tenth century, at least in the regions of northern Europe, was expected to be performed on the Solemnity of the Assumption . In the French Alps and Austria, however, on August 15 or one of the following days, the priests were to bless the horse pastures and cattle gathered around a cross decorated with flowers. On the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, finally, we proceed to the blessing of the sea and fishing boats. These are many different ways to invoke the protection of Mary on the daily life and work of man and to remember, very simply, that where the Assumption is made present the sky onto the earth and the earth is kidnapped skyward.
is worth, perhaps, taking account of these manifestations of popular piety, remember the Second Vatican Council says , about the SS. Lady: "taken up into heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring the gifts of eternal salvation "(Lumen Gentium , 62). Conclusion

So what the prayer of the Church expressed in the liturgical celebration of the Solemnity of the Assumption is found in very simple form, in various manifestations of popular piety that have taken shape over the centuries. As stated Pope Paul VI in Marialis cultus : "The solemnity of August 15 is the feast of her destiny of fullness and happiness, the glorification of her immaculate soul and of her virginal body, of its perfect configuration to the Risen Christ; a party offering to the Church and all mankind the image and the consoling proof of the final hope: that full glorification is the destiny of those whom Christ has made His brothers "(n. 6). Everything converges in the image of "heaven" to which the Assumption of Mary body and soul into it refers. A sky that overlooks the ground to be covered in the joy of faith, a sky that becomes a call to each of us to hasten the path that leads us.
final synthesis can be suggestive of the liturgical richness of the Assumption of Mary, the beautiful prayer that St. Germain, bishop of Constantinople in the eighth century, addressed the Madonna in a speech for the party of "You are the One, who through your immaculate flesh ricongiungesti to Christ the Christian people ... Like every thirsty runs to the source, so each core runs at you, source of love, and as every man aspires to live to see the light that never sets, so every Christian longs to enter into the light of the Holy Trinity, where You are already entered. "

Guido Marini
Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations