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Mary’s Special Place
The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven, observed every Aug. 15th, is a day for celebrating the triumph of Mary over death – in her mortal body. Tradition holds that Mary did not actually pass into death. Her earthly life just came to an end. When she breathed her last earthly breath, her flesh did not begin to decompose. Instead, God assumed her directly into the glory of Heaven – body and soul.
An early Christian feast dating back to the fifth century in the East celebrated the dormition (“falling asleep”) of Mary. Never has her body been found or have her relics been preserved such as was the case with many of the apostles and saints as far back as the first century. Thus people of faith believed for centuries in the Assumption of Mary long before His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, after consultation, proclaimed it a dogma (teaching essential to the Catholic Faith) of the Church on Nov. 1, 1950.
It almost had to happen. Mary had been conceived without original sin and, sinless from her conception to the end of her life, it did not seem fitting that she would experience the corruption of the body that all sinful creatures do. But Mary’s Assumption is also a bonus for us.
The Mother of God is also the Mother of the Church. Where she has gone, we hope to follow. Mary, first of all, always was and always will be a human being. Contrary to the false impressions of some non-Catholics, we never worship Mary as some kind of a goddess. Her many representations in statues and pictures are not magical charms that contain special powers. Like all superstitions, such false notions about the power of objects are another form of idolatry or belief in false gods.
To stretch our imaginations for a moment, the Assumption of Mary invites us to think not only of the body of Mary and its many artistic (or maybe not so artistic!) renditions, but of our own bodies as well. The human body is not evil. God did not intend it to be cast aside and destroyed. We know that the Resurrection teaches us that Jesus was raised: soul and divinity – and body. The Assumption reminds us that our goal in Heaven, like Mary’s, is not just a spiritual reality, but includes our resurrected bodies. To be human means to be an embodied spirit.
In the heat and humidity of summer, the absence of heavy clothing brings awareness of body shapes and figures and wrinkles and tan lines. Except for the fabulous few, it is often a time of consciousness of the limitations of the flesh – as well as its temptations. For Catholic Christians who look to Mary as our model of purity and our glorious future with God, it can also be a boost to our morale. No matter what reflection one might leave in the mirror, in God’s eyes each of us is beautiful and a reflection of the image of his Incarnate Son, Jesus. And Mary reminds us that woman has special place in God’s plan to lead us heavenward. She gives us all a lift in the middle of summer, especially those of us most burdened by our body and its ills and temptations.
The Edwards Affair
The curiosity and schadenfreude growing like mold around the John Edwards affair will have less to do with what he did than with who he is. Somehow the damage done by his sexual infidelity – and its exploitation – will be magnified by his political celebrity, his legal repute, his personality and the odd happenstance of the National Enquirer as whistleblower.
Had not Edwards been so close to the nation’s highest office, had he not been a trial lawyer who profited from the injuries of others, had he not cast himself in such a moralistic, populist light – and had not it been a newspaper not noted for its consistency in reporting – none of this would be a subject of more than a day’s gossip. But it is.
We have little interest in belaboring the above, including whether or not the child of Edwards’ paramour is, contrary to his denial at this writing, his. What concerns us most is that it may become a story more because of who Edwards is than what he confessed to have done. The real story is that adultery – sexual infidelity – a sin against the sixth commandment is, even in 2008, a very hurtful and malicious thing – no matter who does it.
Our age has managed to deceive itself that indulgence in sexual passions can be separated from responsibility to family, children and other social responsibilities. If we stick to the facts as we know them – since Edwards himself admits he did not “love” the woman – sex is what this was all about. It is also, by the way, what adultery is always about – be it via “cybersex,” prostitution, a fling with an old flame or the Friday-night “double life.” An adulterer is not who is acting out of “displaced love” – as one philanderer rationalized it to his wife – unless one can “love” one person by betraying others.
It would be an important missed lesson to see this scandal as a mere “fall from grace” by just another hypocritical public figure. Does Mr. Edwards’ fame make it any easier on his wife and children? Does his declaration that Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer was in remission offer her any consolation? And what if the child is not his? Was the possibility of pregnancy really a concern when an abortionist would always be at the ready to help expunge the “evidence” in case of an inconvenient “mistake”?
And what if Mr. Edwards had succeeded in keeping the affair secret? What if the pesky National Enquirer had imitated the collusion of the “mainstream” media – and chosen to ignore it? Does secrecy or privacy in any way change the nature of the betrayal? Does it diminish its evil?
It is presumptuous and despicable to place oneself in the judgment seat of God. Only the Lord knows what is in the heart and soul of parties involved in an affair – or what state they will come to. But there is much to be learned from taking human sexuality seriously as a power for tremendous good or untold evil. And so long as our age persists in its self-delusion that sex can be separated from responsibility toward family, children and society – just because we can – it is certain that many innocents will continue to be scarred by its cruel wild seeds.
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