It's a bird! It's a plane! Nope! It's Mary!!!!!

Hi Folks!

This past weekend I got be with my family at the lake. We had Mass on Sunday morning together and I asked them to reflect on how they had seen God in the surprises that they experienced this past year. My five nieces, my sister and brother, my sister in law and brother in law, and I had no problem at all relating to one another where we had been surprised in the last twelve months, and how God was part of the surprise. My niece Stephanie, who will be a freshman in high school soon, talked about how had found out this year that she was a better and stronger person, since she had gotten away from some “good time only” friends. For a thirteen or fourteen year old to come to that realization, and not succumb to the group mentality is huge. Only God could have called her to strike out on her own like that. She also recognized God in her self and in the relationships that matter.

On this Feast of the Assumption we hear Mary tell her cousin Elizabeth, “God has done great things in me…” In her Magnificat Mary witnesses to us that God is always with us in our changes and surprises. We can barely imagine what an ordeal Mary had to go through just to give birth to Jesus. The surprise of Gabriel’s visit was just the first of Mary’s shocks. Family, friends, neighbors, synagogue friends and foes, and even Joseph had to treat her like an outcast (at the very least). Being single, young, and pregnant in her day and culture was reason for either expulsion from the community and a life of prostitution usually, IF you weren’t stoned to death by your family when the news first broke. Yet Mary says, “God has done great things in me…”

Her life of Godly surprises culminated in being rewarded by being assumed into Heaven by God after Mary’s death. That is what we celebrate here this weekend. God surprised her again after her life on Earth with bodily assumption into Heaven.

This weekend and for the rest of this week, let’s pray about the surprise that God has given to us in our life. Can we see God in those surprises? Are we open to the changes God has yet in mind for us?

paz,
Fr. Chuck