The Assumption is one of the great Marian feasts. It is the culmination of all that God promised to humanity. Mary is the model for the faithful. Her trust in God’s Word from the message of Gabriel at the Annunciation, her fiat, has come to fruition. After her earthly journey, she is assumed body and soul into heaven. Mary goes before us in the ultimate fulfilment of God’s promise to which we aspire in the fulness of time.

Mary’s Magnificat in the Gospel proclaims her joy as God’s vessel. It is also her testament to the coming of the Messiah. Her song proclaims an upending of the existing order: ‘He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.’ (Luke 1:51-53) It looks back to God’s promise to Abraham, and forward to Jesus’ teaching in the Beatitudes.

Mary is the ‘God-bearer”, the Theotokos. Her surrender to the Word of God in the Annunciation, bears Christ into the world. The Word of God takes root in her heart and Christ’s body in her womb.

Meister Eckhart, the mediaeval theologian sees Mary’s fiat as the ultimate surrender through which all things become possible. Mary allows God to choose for her. Eckhart writes: ‘When I give up choosing for myself, God can choose for me.’ Mary allowed God to choose for her and changed human history.

By Clara Geoghegan