During last Summer, the Scripture class I did for St P's was reading NT Wright's
Surprised by Hope. On this day, we began chapter 7, which begins with a discussion of the Ascension and especially, the importance of believing the ascension of Jesus is a separate event from his resurrection. One of the things Wright wants to get across is that with Jesus' ascension, humanity (embodied, glorified humanity) assumes a place in the Divine "space" or life. If there was no ascension or if ascension and resurrection are collapsed into a single event, among other problems, we might be able to think of heaven as a purely spiritual reality for disembodied human beings, but in light of Jesus' ascension, we
must affirm that heaven looks a lot different than most of us were taught and that is a pretty big surprise for many! It is a place where God takes glorified, embodied humanity into his own life or "space", another step towards the day when God will dwell with us in a new heaven and a new earth where God is all in all.
Wright says: [[The idea of the human Jesus now being in heaven, in his thoroughly embodied risen state, comes as a shock to many people, including many Christians. Sometimes this is because many people think Jesus, having been divine, stopped being divine and became human for a while, stopped being human and went back to being divine. . . More often it's because our culture is so used to the Platonic idea that heaven is by definition a place of "spiritual," nonmaterial reality so that the idea of a solid body being not only present but also thoroughly at home there seems like a category mistake. The ascension invites us to rethink all this; after all, why did we suppose we knew what heaven was? . . Part of Christian belief is to find out what's true about Jesus and let that challenge our culture. This applies in particular to the idea of Jesus being in charge not only in heaven but also on earth, not only in some ultimate future but also in the present.]]
I had prepared this chapter earlier in the week and that included rereading Chapter 6 in preparation, which uses a number of Scriptural references and images dealing with what God wills for the world, namely, that one day heaven and earth would become one realm where God is all in all. We humans will have glorified bodies, just as Jesus does now, and the whole Cosmos will be recreated with Jesus as the first fruits of this new life. I was not, however, thinking of today's Feast or the importance of a theology of Mary's bodily assumption.
However, when I prepared for today's Feast, it became clear that this dogma supports and underscores the early Church's conviction that heaven is not about disembodied beings and an entirely spiritual reality in this Platonic sense. It is about embodied glorified persons who have assumed a place in the very life or "space" of God and are both absent from us and our world as it is, and also present to and for us in a new way!This was a new way of thinking about Mary's assumption for me --- though it certainly seems pretty obvious now. I love that it underscores this "new" (and very early Christian) way of conceiving heaven and the future of the cosmos. I also appreciate how getting the ascension right rules out any misguided attempts to make of Mary a mediatrix, even as it allows her to be honored appropriately. This is also a point Wright makes as he discusses the consequences of getting the ascension right.** It was also an incredibly timely Feast for me because of recent encounters I have had with Gnosticism and those who are seemingly allergic to the goodness and sanctity of the material and spatio-temporal world. I am posting this not only because I am presently spending time on this theology, but also because I wanted to celebrate this aspect of today's solemnity as a gift of God I had simply not expected or seen coming.
(August 15, 2025) What does it mean to be without sin? It seems to me that one of the things it means is that the sinless one is authentically human and in touch with all parts of her being without obstacles or distortions. That includes, of course, one's bodiliness. Moreover, I believe it means being fully aware of and comfortable with the fact that our bodiliness is the primary way we mediate God's presence to others in our world. It is the primary way we express our spiritual nature in so many creative and concrete ways. (The act of sexual love, though often trivialized and distorted, is one of these, of course.) When Aquinas wrote about the soul, he identified it as the form of the body (the body is not the form of a formless soul). When Pope Benedict XVI wrote about this, he discussed the way a soul "builds a body" about itself. The body is not a mere and passive container for the soul, something to be dismissed and discarded at death. The relationship between the two is much more dynamic and integral than that!! When I think about this relationship, the word that comes to mind is "sacramentalizing". Our souls (and so, the very breath of God) are "sacramentalized" through the action of embodiment.
When I was working on an MA in Theology (@1974), I had a Summer class on Grace with John Dwyer and Kenan Osborne, a Franciscan theologian. One day, Kenan picked up a straight chair and clamped it tightly next to his side. He then strode back and forth across the front of the classroom, and up and down some rows of desks, saying repeatedly, "I don't just HAVE a body; I AM MY Body!!!" I have no idea what the lesson of that day's class was, nor whether I understood much of it at that time, but I never forgot Kenan doing this, and it is one of those things that comes back to me from time to time illustrating some puzzling piece of theological reading I am doing, or some enigmatic bit of this Feast or that one. Today, along with Kenan's teachings on Sacraments, this memory is strong in me as I reflect on Mary's Assumption and the way our bodies sacramentalize the very breath of God in our world.
In the past weeks, I have been working around my hermitage to discard so much "stuff" I no longer need. Papers, books, etc., just so much stuff that is now in the way of the work I feel called by God to do. I have been busy building (i.e., assembling) furniture (mainly filing cabinets and shelving units, but also a ladder for my library), and have been freshly surprised by just how much I enjoy such work. At the same time, I have had to face the way age is slowing me down, or illness has weakened me. Yet, there is an underlying joy in all of this "bodiliness", all of this "negotiating space and time" in light of the eternity of God's love!!
It is all profoundly spiritual, even something as mundane as finding the right (and affordable!!!) hardware to secure a library ladder to shelving or drilling holes, driving screws, etc. because God is with me and delighting in the project and processes involved --- not just the creative work it involves or prepares for, but the aging, the chagrin (I accumulated SO much "stuff!!), the laughter (personal conversion occasions a lot of humor and even some appropriate laughing at oneself!!), the wisdom that comes in the midst of it all, and the celebration of life with God in all its spatio-temporal aspects!! In a sense, all of this work is the natural outpouring of a soul that builds a body around itself in so many ways, including not only our physical bodies, but a home, a body of writing or other work, a series of relationships, and so forth.
The Feast of Mary's Assumption has become an important one for me in ways I could never have anticipated. The celebration of bodiliness and its underscoring of the way God creates room for us within Himself, not as disembodied persons or souls, but as those who ARE, by definition, embodied in every way! All good wishes to you all on this amazing Feast!
** Wright's work here is dependent on Douglas Farrow's, Ascension and Ecclesia, On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology. (Cf, especially pp152ff) My sense of Farrow's work is very positive; this is a usual "go to" work for anyone reflecting on the Ascension.
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