Homily: Homeward Bound

Year B / Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings: Revelations 11.19a; 12.1-6a, 10ab / Psalm 45.10, 11, 12, 16  (R/v 10bc) / 1 Corinthians 15.20-27 / Luke 1.39-56

My father loved country and western music. He would play it as our blue Datsun 100A meandered through the then verdant far-flung corners of rural Singapore on our many car rides, a favourite family weekend activity. One of the songs he would play was “Homeward Bound” by Glen Campbell. The song is about traveling home on a train to something better, or as a line in the song says, “home to where my love waits silently for me.” 

What if Christian life is indeed like a train journey? Where will our individual train rides bring us? What is the promise of being homeward bound? Is it a glory worth embarking on and journeying towards in the first place?

I’d like to suggest that we could find an answer or two by reflecting on Mary’s life on earth and her Assumption into heaven that we celebrate today. 

Mary’s life journey finds its fulfillment in God, and in no other end. I think this is the good news today’s solemnity proclaims. Our first reading expresses this very good news in this line from our first reading: God had made a special place for the woman.

This is a place of safety, of peace, of being one with God. This is where humankind experiences the glory of God’s saving love. You and I are promised this glory as Jesus’ friends. How so? Because to be Jesus’ disciples is to make the same journey Mary made in life. Like her, you and I are called to be God’s humble and faithful servants on our individual pilgrimages from earth to heaven.

Mary’s Assumption—her being raised to heaven body and soul—is the truth of what our earthly life is meant for: to bring us home to God who desires to share life with us, not only joyfully but for all eternity. 

I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult sometimes to fully appreciate the truth Mary’s Assumption promises. You might too. We probably find it difficult:

difficult when we make mistakes so bad, so wrong that we feel that “I’m really worthless, really a sinner”; 

difficult when we look at the tall standards of Christian life, and think to ourselves, “How can I ever live this Christian life when I gossip, am lazy, watch porn and masturbate, grab more food and drink than I need, spend my time and money wastefully”; 

difficult when we struggle to make sense of the death of a loved one.

Yet, in the face of these struggles and doubts, the wisdom of our Christian faith says to us: 

no, you are not a worthless failure but life’s learner;  

no, your Christian future is not wasted, but always work in progress; 

no, you beloved dead is not dead but alive with God.

These echo what Mary’s Assumption teaches us again today: the Christian promise of fullness of life.  

We will face many death-like moments, like failure and sin, and death in our lives. Being human, we can despair in angst and think that there nothing worth living for in such moments. But as Christians we are challenged to look beyond such nothingness to God who is always present in our difficulties and pains, confusion and disappointment. And with God in our lives, we are indeed bound for the glory of eternal life.

This is how St Edith Stein explains this truth: when we look at a dead body, the Christian question to consider is not “How did death come?” but “Why am I am alive?” For her, God is the answer. 

I believe God will be our answer too. We believe in God because we know the glory of eternal life is indeed our salvation. And we dare to profess it, again and again, in our Creed, especially when we end with this statement: "I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen." 

If we truly believe the glory of eternal life with God that Mary’s Assumption returns our human gaze to, then, you and I must ask ourselves this hard question: Where are we keeping our gaze on in Christian life? On the earthly and human to satisfy ourselves? Or, on the holy and heavenly we must strive for?

Often, we think of this glory of eternal life in future terms: it will come; we have to wait for it; not now but later. But Jesus’ death and resurrection has already saved us into eternal life. We are in fact living such a life with God now.

Yes, now, no matter how we may have previously lived our lives, be it saintly or sinfully. 

Yes now, no matter how we are loving God now, be it abundantly or limitedly. 

Yes, now, no matter how we may continue caring for each other, be it generously or selfishly. 

Yes, even, now. no matter whether we are baptised or not.

This rightful inheritance of being with God now -- God whose time is always eternal time  -- is truly the glory you and I are bound for.  No, not “bound for” as future event that we must wait to come, but “bound for” in that equally meaningful definition of being tied or tethered to. Yes, we are bound for glory with God because you and I are already bound to Jesus who always binds us to God.

How should we respond to this truth of being bound to God in Jesus? With humility. Humility was Mary’s way of responding to God. In today’s gospel story, Mary sings the Magnificat. It is a song of joyful praise. And it is rooted  in her humble understanding of who she is to God and who God is to her. She is God’s servant, as she proclaimed at the moment of the Annunciation, and God is her Savior.

Today, you and I are being invited to also proclaim our praise of God. We cannot do this however unless we do the Mary thing: humble ourselves to name, claim and proclaim who we are to God and who God is for us – we are his servants and God is our saviour. Humbling ourselves in this way is the best way for us to respond to God. This humble stance is how we can let God better order our lives for salvation as we continue along our journeys of life and faith. 

This is why Dom Damian, the abbot of the Trappist monastery at Spencer, Massachusetts, urges us to consider today’s solemnity as Mary’s invitation to you and me to humble ourselves and join her in singing the Magnificat.* Whether we are near to or far from the fulfillment of our life journeys, praising God’s compassion, justice and greatness in our lives is the right and just way to live our Christian lives.

May be this is why that image of a family singing “Homeward Bound” as their little Datsun 100A rumbled around Singapore challenges me to end with this question: “Might it not be good for us to come together more often, and sing with Mary that we are truly bound for God’s glory?”

*Dom Damian, “Feast of the Assumption,” 2010

Preached at St Ignatius Parish, Singapore

photo: onelifesuccess.net