Beam Me Up Thoughts On Assumption Day

The Assumption or Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a rather confusing topic to outsiders of the catholic tradition. To be brutally frank, the theistic concepts that many Christians take as dogmatically defined and personified are about as useful to understanding spiritual meaning as tits on a rain barrel, and those - as my grandfather often says - aren't very useful.The mythological story is of course divided into several camps, but the main thrust of the Assumption is the taking up of the Mother of Jesus into heaven. Theologians with less to do than you or I argue the finer points, and that's great because it sells books and puts food on their tables...but when it comes right down to it, I think that the broader concepts reveal the spiritual image that needs to be celebrated.So what is this feast? Hmmm...let me think of how to describe what is going on in the Assumption without all the mythology.As endless ripples at the edges of the mind of the unknowable origin of all things, we venture out into darkness in ignorance, in order to learn and become wiser and fulfilled. This is learning, error and finally reconciliation. But since we're in darkness we can't see too well by ourselves, so our inner-self, the "spark of the divine" femininity, is at once our sacred mother and the bride who wants to return to the light - taking us with her.This feminine aspect of the divine has many names and unclear boundaries. Some make convincing cases that the Holy Spirit, Sophia, the Wisdom of God is the highest feminine principle. Others find the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, "Theotokos", as an adequate image for our hearts to grasp onto as we attempt to come face-to-face with the awesome power of our origins.For the Roman rite, original sin and a naughty fetish for micromanaging authoritative doctrine produced the Apostolic Constitution "Munificentissimus Deus" in November 1950. This "infallible" writ is a skillful theological attempt to avoid the obvious problem of evil...but I digress. The Assumption is by no means a clear-cut topic among the communities of the larger catholic family.One recent attempt to reconcile the various interpretations of the Assumption and of Mary's role in the economy of grace is the 2004 "Seattle Statement" of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission entitled "MARY: GRACE AND HOPE IN CHRIST".From my personal perspective paragraph 56 of this document is a perfect description of the way in which we can demystify ancient language to grasp the inner meaning.Mary, a pure virgin, bore God incarnate in her womb. Her bodily intimacy with her son was all of a piece with her faithful following of him, and her maternal participation in his victorious self-giving.Now if we replace Mary and her child with ourselves, born from the womb of the wisdom of the universe, we can understand how she faithfully follows us, and how through grace and "gnosis", we can be victorious. We are not gods, but we are children of the divinity that forms the basis of everything. That is both material and spiritual. The intimacy of our birth in both spirit and flesh is an amazingly strong concept, and of necessity, feminine. It defines our dignity as humans.This is not to diminish the role of the Christ impulse or Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Word. What it does show us is that in this age the theism of the past must be accountable to new experiences. The angry God gives way to grace. John 14:6 and 3:16 illustrate to us that Jesus and his way is exactly that: a way. As Christians, I believe we have to come to terms with the fact that the Renaissance and Enlightenment are not things that happened to other people. The magic, vengeful God of ancient texts reflects the times in which divinity was described. Through our Mother, we are worthy...ever worthy of redemption, which could be seen as the unveiling of the underlying unity of matter and spirit.We look to the sky or outside of ourselves to worship a theistic master, when all we need to remember is the simple lesson that our Mother teaches us. We are within God. The only thing we have to do is look around. "Ex Deo nascimur." From God we are born. "In Christo murimur". In Christ we die. "Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus." By the Holy Spirit we live again.