Overview:

The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

A Reflection for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled” (Lk 1:45).

Find today’s readings here.

Be like Mary, they say. Look at this seemingly impossible situation and believe that God will somehow bring good from it. Say yes. So help me, God, I am trying. 

But in difficult times, in the midst of tragedy, it can be hard to feel it, even as we believe it. How easy it can be to write off God’s promises as platitudes, phrases that look nice on pillows or wall decor. Have you seen how our government treats immigrants? How people have been detained, deported, shot in the street? Be not afraid might as well be live, laugh, love.

The mighty even now are abusing their might, the lowly are being crushed, the rich are literally getting richer as millions go hungry. And yet.

Mary remained with Elizabeth. She remains with us, still. And so, all the while, we cling to and cry out for God’s “promise of Mercy.” Justice and injustice continue, side by side. Already, the Almighty has done great things for us. Those protesting on the streets, those feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, serving those in prison, finding homes for the unhoused. All of us floundering and flourishing in the already-and-not-yet of the kingdom crumbling and being built around us.

Even now, something in us leaps at these signs of our Savior.

Kerry Weber joined the staff of America in October 2009. Her writing and multimedia work have since earned several awards from the Catholic Press Association, and in 2013 she reported from Rwanda as a recipient of Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship. Kerry is the author of Mercy in the City: How to Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Visit the Imprisoned, and Keep Your Day Job (Loyola Press) and Keeping the Faith: Prayers for College Students (Twenty-Third Publications). A graduate of Providence College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously worked as an editor for Catholic Digest, a local reporter, a diocesan television producer, and as a special-education teacher on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.