IN TODAY'S WORLD
September 19, 2021
 Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

In the Gospel today (Mark 9:30-37), Jesus is giving his disciples some information about what is going to happen before it happens so that when it happens they will understand it was in the divine plan. “He said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.’ But they did not understand…”

It would have been nice if they would have ‘understood’ that God was about to redeem the whole world through the suffering, death, and resurrection of His only-begotten Son – their teacher. But as is the case with us too, ‘understanding’ the ‘mysteries of the Kingdom of God’ is rarely gained in a classroom or on a retreat. ‘Understanding’ comes by the experience of trial and error; by falling and being lifted up again.

As they journeyed to Capernaum, the disciples were arguing along the way, arguing about who is the greatest. Not about who is the greatest fisherman, not about the greatest tax collector, but about who is the greatest disciple of Jesus – to be the next leader. How do you measure ‘greatness’ when it comes to ‘discipleship’ anyway? John and James would later ask Jesus for a seat on his right hand and left hand into His glory. Maybe this is how the discussion got started.
Capernaum was Jesus headquarters when He was in the region of Galilee. Mark says, “They went to the house.” ‘The house’ was most likely Peter and Andrew’s house. Once inside ‘the house,’ Jesus asked, “What were you discussing on the way?” And St. Mark writes, “But they kept silent…” It was one of those “Garden of Eden” questions that makes you want to find the nearest tree to hide behind or a rock to crawl under.

"The Lord God called to the man,
Where are you?.. Who told you that you were naked?" (Gn 3.9-11)

The disciples are not ready for confession just yet. They know that anything they say can and will be used against them in the divine court of law, so they kept quiet. Their silence was the silence of guilt.

How different is that from St. Paul’s instruction to the Church: “Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3).

In response to their silence, Jesus “sat down and called the Twelve to him and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first he must be the very last and the servant ofall.’” This lesson had begun with the announcement that “the Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” He is the One who wants to ‘first among them,’ even as He willingly, even gladly, “humbles Himself to become the last and servant of all.”

Along with all of the disciples, there must also have been a child in the house. He took the child in his arms and gave a message to them. He’s not gathering information for himself but inviting the disciples to self-reflection on what it means to be great. He’s presenting the disciples with an image and the reality of their better selves, and he’s doing so for us too. Jesus is not saying that we should not or cannot be great. He never says that. Rather, he is asking us to reframe our understanding of greatness.

What does it mean and look like for you and me to be great in today’s world? That’s the question. Jesus isn’t talking about the child in his arms. He’s talking about what the child represents. We’ve so romanticized and sentimentalized children and childhood in today’s culture that it can be difficult to understand what Jesus is getting at. The child is a symbol of vulnerability, powerlessness, and dependency. The child in Jesus’ day had no rights, no status, no economic value. The child was a consumer and not a producer. Greatness, Jesus says, is in welcoming and receiving into our arms one like this, regardless of his or her age.

Greatness is found not in what we have accomplished and gained for ourselves but in what we have done and given to “the least of these” (Mt. 25:40), the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and imprisoned; the symbolic children in each of our lives. Greatness never puts itself in a position of superiority over another. It is not about me, my nation, my race, my people, my religion, my politics, my bank account, my house, my job, my accomplishments, my reputation, my status. In Jesus, our greatness is revealed in our service and care of others regardless of her or his ability or willingness to pay, repay, or return the favor.

Dear brothers and sisters, when Jesus talked about loving others even when they don’t love you (Lk 6:32), doing good to those who do not do good to you (Lk 6:33), lending without expectation of repayment (Lk 6:34), and inviting to supper those who cannot invite you back (Lk 14:12), He was describing greatness. Greatness comes to us when we share with others who have nothing to share with us. Think of the young boy who shared his five loaves and two fish with 5000 people who contributed nothing but their hunger (Jn 6:9). He was great.

Greatness is not something to be achieved or earned. It is a quality that arises within us when our lives are in balance, and we step into our better selves. That’s the life Jesus offers us. That’s the life I want to live, and you want to live.

WHAT IF IT CAME DOWN TO A CHOICE...
September 12, 2021
 Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

Mark writes his gospel to the Christians in Rome who were living during the reign of the Emperor Nero. A brief bit of background might be helpful. In the year 64AD a terrible fire destroyed much of the city of Rome, and public opinion was that Nero himself had ordered the fires to be set. (The man was a lunatic.) In desperation, Nero needed to find a scapegoat to blame for the disaster. Blame for the fire was placed squarely on the Christians in Rome. The historian Tacitus wrote, “First, Nero had self-acknowledged Christians arrested. Then, on their information, large numbers of others were condemned… Dressed in wild animal’s skins, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark.” The city was invited to the ‘circus maximus’ to watch half-starved lions eat the Christians alive.

This is the audience for whom Mark writes his gospel of Jesus Christ. These are those who ‘had in mind the things of God’ and who renounced the ‘things of man’ but would not renounce the name of Jesus Christ, and for His name’s sake, experienced terrible suffering, rejection, and death, just as Jesus had.

Mark begins his gospel with a bold proclamation: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). After that, immediately he tells the earthly stories of the Son of God. Today we come to the exact middle, the end of the 8th chapter, and Jesus asks the big question: “Who do people say that I am?” With the kind of groundwork carefully laid out, what would you expect people would be saying about Jesus?

Mark has carefully recorded what people have been saying about Him up to this point. They say: “What is this?” “Who then is this that even wind and sea obey him?” “He is possessed by Beelzebul.” “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” It is said He is “John the Baptist, raised from the dead.” “He is Elijah.” So, no one gets it! No one sees as who He is.

Ironically, the only ones in the first half of Mark’s gospel that get it are the demons. “I know who you are: the Holy one of God.” “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”

So, when Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and when Peter answers, “You are the Christ,” they get it! They see Him “as He is.”

By the end of Mark’s gospel, it becomes apparent that there are some who get it and some who don’t and never will. At the trial before the Sanhedrin, the Chief Priest and the Sanhedrin are still blind. “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Most High? “(14:61). But the centurion at the foot of the cross gets it. “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (15:39).

“And Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He said this plainly. No parables, no symbolism, no figures of speech, no hidden meanings. He gave it to them straight, plainly. Jesus says that this “must” happen; that means there’s no getting around it, no compromise, no deals. This is the only way. This was the Father’s “must,” and Jesus delights in doing what His Father says He “must” do. Even if it’s “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and be killed and rise again.”

We need to learn to appreciate Jesus’ acceptance of what He “must” do. He must suffer many things, because we have sinned against God. He must be rejected, because we have rejected God. He must die, because we have chosen the way of death over life. He must be raised again, because He has no sin and death has no hold on Him. He must rise from the dead, or you and I never will. This is what it means to be “the Christ.” This is what it means to confess, “You are the Christ.” When Jesus said the Son of Man must suffer and die, Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke him, “Let it never happen to you.” He is ‘rebuking’ Jesus for doing what He must do for us men and for our salvation. “Turning and seeing the disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God but on the things of man.’”

The same Peter who had rebuked Jesus for saying that He must suffer, be betrayed, and be murdered was arrested in Rome under Nero’s orders. What a spectacle Nero could make out of one of Jesus’ own disciples. When Peter was informed that he was going to be crucified, he did not deny, but confessed. Peter requested that he be crucified upside down so that no one would confuse his death with Christ’s death. The cross which he so objected to as a young disciple, he now embraced in his old age. In losing his life, Peter found his life, just as Jesus said he would.
Dear brothers and sisters, setting our minds on the things of God and not on the things of man is the great challenge for all of us. The “things of man” are those things that are commended, applauded, and praised by men and women such as success, power, prestige, and influence. We strive to achieve some measure of stability for our lives. And is there anything wrong with any of these “things of man”? Of course not. But what if it came down to having to make a choice between these “things of man” and the “things of God”? The “things of God” are the daily details of life lived out according to God’s Word. What if it came down to a choice between the “things of man” and the “things of God?” Would you be willing to let go of the “things of man” to hold onto “the things of God?”

This is a choice that we are confronted with on a daily basis in the things we do as disciples. What will we answer to our Lord if he asks the same question of us: “Who do you say that I am?”

 BE OPENED!
September 5, 2021
Deacon Dennis Walters

Whenever I administer baptism to a child, I always include an optional ceremony in the Baptismal liturgy called the “Ephphatha rite.” Following the text, I say, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word [putting my fingers on the child’s ears], and your mouth to proclaim his faith [touching the child’s mouth], to the praise and glory of God the Father.” The rite takes its cue from today’s Gospel reading.

Two things strike us as we read or hear this Gospel story. One is its ceremonial aspect: the isolation from the crowd, the gestures, the looking up to heaven and the groaning. The other is the “unsanitary” nature of Jesus’ actions, where he puts his fingers in the man’s ears, then spits on his finger and puts it on the man’s tongue. The actions and the gestures are immediately personal, using dramatic, intimate, and (to us) grossly physical contact. It’s almost as if Jesus senses that something in the man is resistant to being healed.

Let’s look at this healing in a little more detail. Jesus’ command – “Be opened! – is not addressed to the man’s ears or to his tongue, but to the man himself. He is closed to the Gospel. Through the medium of ears and mouth, he needs to be open to hear and speak, since both are the basis of a relationship with anyone, especially with Jesus. The healing follows a deliberate progression.

Jesus begins with the ears first. Why?

There’s something in human nature that doesn’t want to hear the gospel. Chalk it up to original sin, but we almost instinctively react against what it says and what it demands. Even those of us raised in the faith may tell ourselves, “I’ve heard it before, it doesn’t work, that stuff is for saints, I don’t want to change, I can be a nice person without it,” and so on. The culture also attempts to divert our faith from the Gospel, which may explain why Jesus pulled the deaf man away from the crowd. This program of diversion takes place both by what the culture wants us to hear and by what it wants us not to hear.

According to St. Paul, faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17). We know from experience how this works. How often do we believe gossip about our families or friends? How often do news agencies warn us about listening to misinformation? But Paul also adds that faith in the Gospel comes by hearing it preached. That iswhy the Liturgy of the Word at Mass – the readings and the homily – is so important; it’s a necessary part of the Eucharistic liturgy.

So the first thing Jesus has to do is overcome our resistance to hearing him, even if it means being unsanitary about it. And even once our ears are miraculously opened, we need to learn how to hear and understand his voice. That takes some practice. The world is full of messages to sort through. Jesus warns us to be careful how we hear (Luke 8:18), but hearing him is possible. If we don’t know how to hear, we can simply ask Jesus to open our ears so we can hear him speak. We should pay special attention to the questions he asks (“Didn’t you hear? What do you want me to do for you? Who do you say that I am? Will you also go away?”) because he’s looking for an answer from us.

The next thing Jesus does is touch the man’s tongue,
since a person who can’t hear can’t speak clearly.
Our culture encourages a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude to religious faith. The deal is, I won’t ask you what your day-to-day relationship with Jesus Christ is like, and you won’t ever have to tell me about it. To most people, religion is a private matter. Either they don’t want to talk about their personal relationship with Jesus Christ, or they’re afraid of having to defend themselves in an argument, or they don’t feel that there’s anything to talk about.

The Catholic Church explicitly says that all of that is wrong. Sure, our faith is very personal to us – it must be – but it is not private. If we don’t speak it, others won’t hear it. Jesus wants our mouths to be open to speak. As the baptismal liturgy says, our mouth is made to proclaim his faith; so when our ears are open, our mouth can form the right words. In fact, the Gospel of Matthew ends with the command to speak the Gospel to all nations.

Our mouths need to be opened to speak. That may take courage, but we can start with small things. Like telling others where we spend our time on Sunday mornings, how we pray, and events that have made a spiritual difference in our lives.

This healing is deliberately dramatic (the isolation from the crowd, the extravagant gestures) and is very personal. It addresses us as well as the deaf and dumb man. From Jesus’ fingers to my ears, from Jesus’ saliva to my tongue. “Be opened!”

Here’s something you can do right now. In a moment, we will recite the Nicene Creed, which is a summary of what we believe. Right now, ask the Holy Spirit to help you hear something in it you haven’t really heard before. As you do that, make a deliberate effort to speak the words of the Creed to yourself with new meaning.
Amen.

HE IS FAITHFUL AND JUST...AND WILL FORGIVE US
August 29, 2021
 Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

T here are all sorts of traditions in life. We have family traditions, holiday traditions, community traditions. And by and large traditions are a good thing. Traditions serve a useful function. They give us a sense of connection with others and continuity with our past. And that’s a good thing. Today’s gospel is talking specifically about religious traditions. But when it comes to religious traditions, there are some things you need to watch out for. And that’s what Jesus warns us about in today’s passage.

In this passage the Pharisees approach Jesus because his disciples are breaking one of their traditions about washing their hands before eating. And Jesus uses this opportunity first to give some instruction about traditions in general, and then to address the particular concern of the Pharisees about spiritual uncleanness.

For the Jews in Jesus time, this was not so much a matter of personal hygiene as of ceremony. They performed a ceremonial washing before eating, which may have involved dipping their hands and arms into water all the way up to the elbow. Mark says that in doing these things, they were holding to the tradition of the elders. Who were these elders? They were the leaders, respected men in the community, including such people as the scribes and Pharisees and synagogue rulers. And the tradition of the elders was a set of oral interpretations of the law that was passed down from one generation to the next.

It is important to understand that these traditions were not Scriptural For example, in the Bible only the priests were required to perform ceremonial washings (Exodus 30:17-21, 40:12; 2 Chronicles 4:6), but over time the elders began to apply these rules to the people as well. And so by the time of Jesus, Mark says that this was the common practice for all the Jews.

The Jewish leaders were judging the disciples when they were eating without ceremonial washing according to tradition rather than Scripture. And although there is nothing wrong with having certain traditions, you should not judge other people by your traditions. There are some traditions or practices that are causing a lot of stir in churches today. Some of the hot-button issues include worship style, dress code, the use of media. In our state in India, we have to remove our shoes before we enter into church, but in the western culture we need to wear them. One of the wonderful things about the gospel is that it is for all people in all cultures.

What we all need to do is allow the gospel to penetrate and shape our culture accordingly. Then we will learn to praise God in our own language and write our own songs and adopt our own worship traditions that are appropriate to our culture. So, there was nothing wrong with the Pharisees washing their hands before eating. There is nothing wrong with a ceremonial cleansing. But the Pharisees were wrong to judge the disciples for not keeping a tradition. That’s our first lesson today from this gospel: “Do not judge other people by your traditions.”
In response to them, Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13 and tells the Pharisees that Isaiah was talking about them. Jesus uses some strong words for the Pharisees here. He calls them hypocrites. Here they were busy washing their hands before eating and observing all sorts of rituals and traditions, but they weren’t right with God in their hearts. Everything looked good on the outside, but there were deep spiritual problems within. So the second lesson this gospel tells us is that when you neglect your heart relationship with God and rely on the outward traditions and forms instead, you put yourself in spiritual danger.

Jesus gave them an example: The Bible says, “Honor your father and mother” in Exodus 20:12, and “Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death” in Exodus 21:17. Those are some pretty clear commands of Scripture. The first one comes from the Ten Commandments, and the second one was one of the national laws of Israel that demonstrated the seriousness of obeying the first law.

But the Pharisees had a tradition or practice known as “Corban.” They would designate certain of their financial resources as “corban” that is, dedicated to God by an irrevocable vow. It was put under a “ban” so that it could not be used for any other purpose. Practically speaking, it was a way of “tagging” them, suggesting, “this belongs to God” and thus was not to be used for personal interests, even to take care of the parents. Here was an example where a tradition was in direct contradiction to the Scriptures, but the Pharisees were going with the tradition rather than God’s word. So the third lesson is that God’s commands always come before man-made rules and regulations.

Dear brothers and sisters, how do you stay spiritually clean before God? I want to share two things in closing here. 1) Spiritual cleansing begins with the washing in the baptismal waters. We are washed clean of our original sin. 2) Then, after this initial cleansing, we need continued cleansing. And this cleansing takes place as we confess our sins to God, as we approach the confessional with a contrite heart. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

"HARD SAYINGS"
August 22, 2021
Deacon Dennis Walters

I n today’s Gospel, the disciples react to what sounds to them like crazy-talk. Not only does it seem to violate the Mosaic prohibition against drinking blood, but it also appears to invite cannibalism. We react to these things, too. Whenever we take the time to read Scripture seriously, we will sooner or later stumble on something that causes us to think, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” The Bible is full of “hard sayings” of one sort or another, and what we do with them depends on why we find them hard.

Some passages are hard because they’re just plain dense or confusing. The translation may occasionally be part of the problem. King James English uses grammar structures and vocabulary choices unfamiliar to readers today. But even when the translation is clear, the meaning may not be. Scripture scholars themselves have trouble with certain passages. For example, commenting on St. Paul’s discussion in Rom. 9-11 about why Israel rejects the Gospel, the footnote in the Ignatius Study Bible admits that it “is difficult to follow because the argument winds through a dense forest of echoes, allusions, and citations from the OT” (note at Rom. 9:1). In his second letter, St. Peter admits that there are some things in Paul’s writings that are hard to understand and that can be twisted by the ignorant (2 Pet. 3:15-16).

Some passages are hard because they conflict with our understanding of how the world works. For example, the Bible is full of miracle stories. Two of those that most people find incredible are the stories of the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus and the Resurrection of Jesus in the gospels. If, like certain commentators, you think miracles are impossible, you might conclude that they are just mythical pieties. Or you might search for some non-miraculous explanation for them. Or you could compile for yourself a version of Scripture that leaves them out, as Thomas Jefferson did. Or you could simply skip over them to get to more “realistic” material.
Some passages are hard because we find hem distasteful or hard to do, such as loving one’s enemies or turning the other cheek, or committing ourselves to Jesus in preference to our parents and siblings. Some passages might go counter to what we want, such as those that condemn fornication and other sexual sins, and so we just ignore them. And some passages we reject because of ideology. A few years ago, a group of feminist theologians reading the Ephesians passage in today’s second reading, about wives submitting to their husbands, publicly dramatized their position by claiming, “This is not God’s word for us,” and tearing that page out of the Bible.

Finally, some passages are hard because they appear to make God into a vengeful, wrathful, or even monstrous personality. These are passages that Pope Benedict XVI called the Bible’s “dark passages.” A little over a year ago, a friend in Poland contacted me with a question that his Bible study group had about why God would command King Saul to place all the Amalekites under the ban, a process of extermination that we would call genocide (1 Sam. 15). How is such a command compatible with the New Testament’s portrayal of a loving God? Together, we set up a Zoom call to discuss that issue.

Accepting the “dark passages” in Scripture can be difficult because of the violence and immorality they occasionally contain. Examples include times when God’s prophet commands the ban, or when Samson kills thirty Philistines apparently out of revenge for a bet he was tricked into losing (Judg. 14:19). The Bible reports these without denouncing their immorality. In his Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini, the pope said that it would be a mistake for us to ignore or avoid such passages. Rather, he explains, “biblical revelation is deeply rooted in history. God’s plan is manifested progressively, and it is accomplished slowly, in successive stages and despite human resistance” (italics in original). The ministry of the prophets who “vigorously challenged every kind of injustice and violence, whether collective or individual, … became God’s way of training his people in preparation for the Gospel.” However we think of such an explanation, it helps us to recall that human nature hasn’t changed in four thousand years. As recent genocides prove, our race has a long way to go before we can say we’ve learned the Gospel’s message of love.

Regardless of why we find certain passages “hard,” we need to be careful of treating Scripture as if it is merely a human document, or allowing ourselves to feel that we have authority over what it says for our lives. Paul reminds us that “all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). In Scripture, God teaches us, corrects us, trains us, and equips us.

So to read or hear it fruitfully, we need an attitude of humility before sayings we find hard to take. We should resolve to accept Scripture as it presents itself to us and obey whether we like it or not. Our attitude should be one of docility to sayings we find distasteful or hard to do. If we don’t understand a passage or why it’s even in Scripture, we can always search out an interpretation that clarifies things; owning a Bible with explanatory footnotes is especially helpful. And always we should pray for grace to do God’s will, especially when it is hard.

LET US FIX OUR GAZE
August 15, 2021
 Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

The Assumption is the greatest solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary; it is the celebration of her solemn entrance into the glory of heaven. It is her eternal reward for the “Yes” she gave in response to God’s project of salvation and for collaborating consequently as a faithful disciple of Christ, her Son, until the end.

The word “assumption” comes from the Latin root “assumptio,” meaning “to be taken up.” St. Paul teaches that we will be “assumed” (taken up or caught up) into the clouds to meet Jesus at the last day (see 1Thes. 4:17). When we talk of the assumption of Mary, we refer to the belief that she was “taken up” by God to dwell with her beloved Son, Jesus Christ in heaven.
This gives value to the afterlife of those who believe in God and in His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; a feast which reminds us that if we remain faithful to the end, we shall be “taken up” into the clouds to meet the Lord on the last day.

This becomes more meaningful when we consider the Pauline writing: “In fact, however, Christ has been raised from the dead, as the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep. As it was by one man that death came, so through one man has come the resurrection of the dead. Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life; but all of them in their proper order” (1 Cor 15:20-23). Here, we see the foundation of the grace of the Assumption of our Lady precisely in the victory of Christ over death. Christ is the cause and model of our resurrection. Those who are born in Him through baptism, those who believe in Him and live in Him, will be resurrected with Him on the last day.

The doctrine of the Assumption of Mary is already prefigured in the book of Psalms: “Go up, Lord, to the place of your rest, you and the ark of your strength…” (Ps. 132:8). In this light, the Blessed Virgin Mary could be understood as the ARK of the Lord’s strength.

In the Old Testament, God made a covenant with the Israelites on Mt. Sinai through Moses. This is known as “The Law” contained in two Tablets of Stones. This was usually kept in an Ark prepared for it (Ex 25:10-22); the Ark was the dwelling place of the Covenant, (that is, its tent).
Consequently, in the New Testament, we come to contemplate the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant, for she was privileged to provide a fitting dwelling place for our Lord Jesus Christ, the New Covenant, in her womb, the Ark. Jesus Christ is the New Covenant at its core. He embodies everything the New Covenant is. At the Last Supper, we hear Him saying: “This is the Cup of my blood, the blood of the NEW and EVERLASTING COVENANT…” (Mt. 26:27-28).

Being the Ark of the New Covenant, the Blessed Virgin Mary has some similarities with the Ark of the Old Covenant containing the Law written on Tablets of Stones. When the angel Gabriel was sent by God to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will ‘overshadow’ you,” that is cover you with its shadow (Luke 1:35). The verb “to cover” or “to overshadow” and the metaphor of a cloud are used in the Bible to represent the presence of glory of God.

Similarly, when the Ark of the Old Covenant was completed, the cloud of the Lord covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle (Ex 40:34-35). Also, when David received the Ark of the Old Covenant, he danced for joy in the presence of the Ark; he said: “How can the Ark of God come to me?” He also left it in the hill country of Judaea for 3 months (1Sam 6:1-2; 2Sam 6:9-14).

Similarly, in the gospel when Elizabeth received Mary (the Ark of the New Covenant), she was filled with the Holy Spirit, and the baby in her womb danced/leapt for joy. She exclaimed: “Blessed are thou among women…Why is it granted to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42-43). This is similar to the statement of David as stated above; and Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months in the hill country of Judea, the same case with the Old Testament Ark as stated above.

In honoring His beloved and precious Ark, after His Ascension into heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ, judged it worthy that His Blessed Mother be assumed (taken up) body and soul into heaven. That is why the book of Psalms makes the allusion “Go up, Lord, to the place of your rest, you and the Ark of your strength…” (Ps. 132:8). She received the crown of “unfading glory” when she assumed into heaven.

Dear brothers and sisters, today’s feast is not just for the Blessed Virgin Mary alone. First of all, it glorifies Christ, the author of our salvation, because, in Mary’s Assumption the victory over death is revealed, which Jesus has already conquered.
Secondly, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a precious anticipation of our resurrection and is based on the Resurrection of Christ, which will transform our corruptible body, making it similar to Christ’s glorious body.

Today’s Solemnity fills us with confidence and illumines our hope. Saint Josemaria Escrivá teaches: “We are still pilgrims, but our Mother has preceded us and already, indicating the end of the road: she encourages us that it is possible to get there and that we will get there if we are faithful because the Blessed Virgin is not just our example: she is the Help of Christians.”
Let us, therefore, fix our gaze on Mary, already assumed into heaven! She is the certainty and proof that her children will one day have their bodies glorified with the glorious Christ.