assumption...providing space - feast of the assumption 2015

Today we celebrate the Assumption of our Blessed Mother.  God who is divine does not occupy space.  God after all is spirit.  To become man, to become flesh means to occupy space.  In the Annunciation Mary provided that space.  Thus God became man, the word became flesh, Jesus who is God was born in time and space because one day in a town called Nazareth, a young woman by the name of Mary consented when the angel asked her to give God a space in her person, and through her person, a space in the world.  This is what we refer to as the mystery of the incarnation.

The ark of the covenant was a box that provided space for God – God was present in the box.  It was last seen during the time of King Josiah, when he ordered the priests to bring the ark to Jerusalem.  Forty years later Jerusalem would fall to the Babylonians and be reduced to ashes.  From then on nobody knew where the ark was.  But there arose a legend that when the Ark of the Covenant is seen again, the messiah will appear.  In the Book of Revelation, our first reading today, the Ark of the Covenant was seen in the heavens for the first time after 5 centuries. And John after seeing the ark described what he saw as a woman clothed with a sun and a moon under her feet.  He did not describe the ark as a box, he described the ark as a woman.  And that was how Mary came to be referred to as the Ark of the Covenant, formerly a box, now a woman that provided space for God. 

When the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem, King David danced for joy at its presence.  When Mary visited Elizabeth, the child in her womb leapt for joy.   Mary was the ark and the visitor was not just Mary but also what the ark contained, the Lord.  And Zechariah would affirm this when he said, “Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel for he has visited his people.”  Mary was the Ark and God who was provided space by Mary visited his people. This is what we refer to as the Visitation.

And so when Mary finished her journey here on earth, when she slept the sleep and dreamt the dream, it was now God’s turn to give to Mary what she provided God many years before.  It was now God’s turn to provide space for Mary.  It was not enough to claim back her spirit.  It was not enough to claim back her soul.  God has to claim too her body and thus provide it with space, space in the mansion of many rooms which Jesus talked about to his disciples.  God gave this space to Mary, in the same way that Mary gave God space in her womb.  This is what we call the mystery of the Assumption.

The mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of the visitation, and the mystery of the Assumption – these feasts are all about giving room and providing space – Mary providing space for God and God in return making room for Mary.

Today as we gather in Assumption for the feast of the Assumption let us look back in time but with an eye to the present on how our education in Assumption has inculcated in us the importance of making room and providing space for God and others in our lives.

First the morning talk, the visit to the Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Hour.  These were the times and activities where Assumption education taught us to make room for God in our lives.  Morning talk can be boring but the songs are never forgotten.  I volunteered many times for the visit to the Blessed Sacrament.  It was a valid and even a holy excuse from class even for just a short 15 minutes.  And at the departure area, at the side door of the chapel as one waited for the car to bring one home, one can see an invitation in Latin, Magister adest et vocat te, the teacher is here and he calls you.  I only came to understand the invitation when I was already in the seminary.  If I understood it then, I would have frequented the holy hour more than the games in the yard. 

We never seem to appreciate things like these when we were younger but as we grew older the memories of these empty spaces, the memories of these vacant rooms in our young lives create a yearning now, not because of sentimentality but because of its beauty and usefulness.  I will never know if those empty spaces really created a significant dent in my knowledge of math and science, but being older now and wiser perhaps, those empty spaces are in fact necessary like a magnificent calligraphy where a smudge of black ink shines more wonderfully on empty white paper. 

Second, the empty spaces created by learning outside the classroom – pastorals, immersions, field trips, visits to markets and fields, in homes set in squalor, to being with children less privileged than us, to people in prison and the families they left behind. These were the spaces provided to us by Assumption where we were taught to make room for God and to make room for others, times when learned empathy, times when we were taught to think of others more than ourselves, where we came to know the lives of people and their stories, those times when we walked where they walk, when we smelled what they smell.  I remember those times when Mother Carmela would call my attention in my awkwardness saying “ay ambot sa imo Alejandro a”.  There was also a time when Mother Blanca gently took my hand away from my nose which I was covering in dread of the smell. Those were times when our hearts full of ourselves and our pettiness were swept clean and emptied to make room for others less privilege than us, for concerns bigger than our trivialities.  It opened our world not just to the possibilities of making money and gaining more fame, but to possibilities of service and sacrifice.  It opened our eyes to the world around us not to dread its misery, but to see things with hope and to see greater possibilities when we make room, when we provide space for others in our hearts.

At one point in our lives, Assumption has taught us to make room for God.  At one point in our lives Assumption has taught us to make room, to provide space for others in our lives.  May God one day reward us like Mary by providing us a room, by giving us a space, because there was a time too in our lives when we gave God and others a space and a room in our hearts and in our lives.