The Fulfillment of the Promises of God – Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; August 15, 2025

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary brings her life to completion and eternal fulfillment. Yet, to understand that fulfillment it will be good to go back to the beginning, her Immaculate Conception. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception the Church prays through the intercession of the one whom God made to be the worthy Mother of his Son by preserving her from every stain of sin, through the foreseen merits of the death of his Son. (cf. Collect of the Immaculate Conception)

This means that Mary is who she is because from eternity God designed her to be the Mother of the Word Incarnate, the Son of God made man, Jesus Christ. Her holiness, from the beginning is the holiness of the Mother of God. Making her to be the Mother of her Son, God did not just use her as a physical instrument for his human birth, but chose her to care for him, as a Mother, in his infancy and youth, and to accompany him as a Mother, in his work, which was nothing less than the salvation of the human race.

Accompany him as a Mother – when a child leaves home, the mother’s heart goes with him, even though she remains at home; when a child leaves home, the mother is concerned about all that he is doing, and desires his well-being, prosperity, and success in all that he does. When Jesus left Nazareth to go to the Jordan to be baptized and to begin his public ministry, his work of teaching, announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God, in his own person, and revealing himself through his miracles, all in preparation for his saving death on the Cross and his resurrection, Mary understood, as much as a human being could, her Son’s mission and her Mother’s heart went with him on that mission, and finally she came herself to stand at the foot of the Cross, joining her heart with his. There at the foot of the Cross, her motherhood was transformed and universalized, as Jesus said to her, Woman, behold your son, referring to the Beloved disciple, the concrete and living representation of every future disciple, beloved by Jesus.

Mary’s holiness, then, prepared her to be the Mother of the Son of God, and as Mother of God, to become the Mother of all the faithful, indeed the Mother of the whole human race, for which Christ shed his Blood. Yet, that holiness, that perfection of the life of grace, meant that she needed, in the first place, to be the perfect disciple of her own Son, the one who most perfectly heard his word and put it into practice. (cf. Mt 7:24, Lk 11:28) As the perfect disciple of her Son she is the most perfect fruit of his redemptive work, the most perfectly conformed to his image, and the most perfect example for us in the order of faith and the reception of grace.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, is our supreme example. Yet, he is not an example for us in the exercise of his divine power; we are not called to follow him in the working of miracles, though it is given to some to perform miracles in his name. For her part, the Blessed Virgin worked no miracles during her earthly life, though she did, through her intercession, give rise to the miracles of Jesus.

Jesus’ commandment is to love one another as he has loved us and the example he gives us is chiefly the supreme example of love, lived by God, in a human life, lived at home in Nazareth, in subjection to Mary and Joseph and brought to completion by giving his life for us on the Cross, to the last drop of his precious Blood.

Jesus gives us an example of love, but he does not give us an example of faith. He is rather, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the one in whom we believe. He is the source of our faith; he is the eyewitness of God; he makes God known to us as the one who truly knows. (cf. Jn 1:18, 14:1) Jesus also possesses, in his sacred humanity, the fulness of grace and from his fulness we have all received. (Jn 1:14,16) Yet, he possesses the fulness of grace as the source and fount of grace, not as the recipient.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, full of grace, possesses grace in the fulness of one who has received and been transformed by the life of grace, so she is our example in the order of the reception of grace. She also made her earthly pilgrimage walking by faith, not by sight, and so she is the supreme example for the life of faith.

All this means that her maternity in our regard involves not only her maternal intercession and care, but also her maternal example.

All this comes to fruition in her bodily assumption into heaven. She is not only are example in our pilgrim life in this world, but also our example in fruition and reward.

All the promises of God, in which we are called to share, have been fulfilled already in her. In her, already, death, the last enemy has been destroyed. In her God has been made all in all. (1 Cor 15:28)

St. Paul wrote that our Lord Jesus Christ will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him to subject all things to himself. (Ph 3:21) This has been fulfilled in the Blessed Virgin Mary in her bodily assumption.

According to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells. (2 Pe 3:13) That new heavens and new earth are already realized in the Blessed Virgin Mary, taken up body and soul into heaven. In her, death has been completely conquered. (cf. Rev 21:4) In her, we see embodied the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Rev 21:2) She is clothed with the glory of God as with the sun. (cf. Rev 21:11)

St. Paul wrote, We know that in everything God works for good for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. (Rm 8:28-29)

That divine purpose, being conformed to the image of his Son, God and man, has been achieved in the Blessed Virgin Mary, in a supreme fashion, in her holiness, in her suffering at the foot of the Cross, in her bodily assumption into glory.

The Queen stands at your right hand in gold of Ophir. She has become our Queen, as well as our Mother. Yet, in this too she is the supreme example of the fulfillment of God’s promise. Jesus promised to those who conquer through their fidelity to him in this life, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. (Rev 3:21) All the saints in heaven, then, share in Christ’s throne, and reign as kings and queens. Such is the Virgin Mary, in the highest degree, even above all the choirs of angels.

From that throne she has become our all-powerful intercessor. Jesus promised, Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. (Jn 14:13) Only those can ask in the name of Christ who have been united to Christ and become like him. In all of heaven and earth, there is no one else so perfectly united and perfectly conformed to Christ; there is no one else so perfectly capable of asking in his name. She asks, and he does it.