Hello everyone. I hope you are well and keeping safe. Happy Feast Day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary! As I mentioned probably too many times, my brothers and I would take turns living in Ireland with our aunt and uncle during our childhood summers. I always associate this feast day with my father’s hometown, Castlegregory, County Kerry. There would be a week long feast surrounding this day, the Assumption of Mary. The people called it, “Patern’s Day” which really was Patron’s Day. The village was dedicated to the feast of the Assumption of Mary. So we had a week long of public games and all sorts of fun, not to mention Mass of course! You probably won’t be surprised that what I remember most was a particular food item very close to the people of Castlegregory, namely “mutton pies!” Just writing those words I become hungry!
Almost every household back there in that little village cooked hundreds of these incredibly delicious mutton pies. They were simple lamb pies but, Oh my goodness, I can smell and taste them to this very day! My cousins introduced me to the art of thievery as we would get up in the middle of the night and steal a couple of pies from the kitchen table that my aunt would have cooked all day long. Ideally, one would eat them in the broth that boiled the lamb. But to have one in the hand was just as enjoyable! My mother, God bless her, learned from her mother in law, my grandmother, how to make them. And thus, she brought the custom to Loring Place in the Bronx making my father and his seven sons the happiest people in the world! Ah, memories! I bet you have some very similar stories.
This beautiful feast day is a reminder of how our Blessed Mother goes before us and forever intercedes with us. She loves us so much, she wants us to be with her happily in heaven rejoicing in the awesome presence of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Permit me to leave you with a few words from a homily by St John Paul II on this feast day. Enjoy the rest of the day.
At her Assumption, Mary was "taken up to Life" – body and soul. She is already a part of "the first fruits" of our Savior’s redemptive Death and Resurrection. The Son took his human life from her; in return he gave her the fullness of communion in Divine Life. She is the only other being in whom the mystery has already been completely accomplished. In Mary the final victory of Life over death is already a reality. And, as the Second Vatican Council teaches: "In the most holy Virgin the Church has already reached the perfection whereby she exists without spot or wrinkle." In and through the Church we too have hope of "an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us."
You are blessed, O Mary! Mother of the Eternal Son born of your virgin womb, you are full of grace. You have received the abundance of Life as no one else among the descendants of Adam and Eve. As the most faithful "hearer of the Word", you not only treasured and pondered this mystery in your heart, but you observed it in your body and nourished it by the self–giving love with which you surrounded Jesus throughout his earthly life. As Mother of the Church, you guide us still from your place in heaven and intercede for us. You lead us to Christ, "the Way, and the Truth, and the Life," and help us to increase in holiness by conquering sin.
The Liturgy presents you, Mary, as the Woman clothed with the sun. But you are even more splendidly clothed with that Divine Light which can become the Life of all those created in the image and likeness of God himself: "this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
We rejoice, Mary, we rejoice with you, Virgin assumed into heaven. The Lord has done great things for you! The Lord has done great things for us! Alleluia. Amen.