The Assumption of the Virgin and the End of the World – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church, Burns, Oregon; August 15, 2026

We celebrate today the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heaven.

We learn, or should learn, that we should be careful about making assumptions, but this is different. When we make an assumption, we are taking up a thought into our mind, regarding it as true, even though it lacks foundation. The word means “a taking up.” So, in the assumption of the Blessed Virgin, it is God who takes the Virgin Mary up to heaven, body and soul; the Assumption has its foundation in the power of God; the truth is made known to us by God who can neither deceive nor be deceived, and so it is not a truth that we assume, but a truth that we believe, most surely, on the most solid foundation.

Still, we might be in danger of assuming that the meaning of the dogma is that Mary is in heaven. That needs some clarification.

Let’s first consider St. Peter. He is in heaven right? Well, his soul is in heaven, filled with the vision of God, the Most Holy Trinity. His soul is blessed, lacking nothing for its essential happiness. But if we are to speak of the whole person, alas, poor St. Peter is not complete. He is missing his body, an essential part of his person, who he is; that body lies buried deep beneath the high altar of the Vatican Basilica. There it will lie until the last day, when Jesus Christ returns in glory, and the dead are raised: those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment, those who have done good to the resurrection of life. (cf. Jn 5:29) Then all the saints will be complete, and God’s plan of salvation will have reached its completion.

Through her bodily assumption into heaven, God’s plan of salvation has already reached its completion in the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first among the redeemed. She, the holy Mother of God, is not in heaven merely with her soul, which in this world walked to perfection the path of faith, hope, and charity, but also with her body, that bore the Son of God. In her whole person, in soul and body, she is the temple of God, or better, the ark of the covenant within the temple.

Now, unlike her Immaculate Conception, the dogma of the Assumption, in one respect, does not seem to indicate a unique privilege of the Virgin. Indeed, the New Testament seems to indicate that many of the just from before the time of Christ, have also been raised up body and soul to heaven. St. Matthew reports that when Jesus died on the Cross the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs were also opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Mt 27:51-53) St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, quotes the Psalm, referring it to Christ’s Ascension into heaven, When he ascended on high he led a host of captives. (Eph 3:8) The captives are those he has seized from the power of death and led to heaven with him in a triumphal procession. Among these first fruits of Christ’s resurrection and ascension, surely, we could number St. Joseph.

Yet, at the same time, the Blessed Virgin’s Assumption, which seems to be the only one since Christ’s ascension, is unique: while she died and was buried, the body of the woman who bore the Son of God did not undergo corruption; that is why in the East, they fittingly refer to the mystery of the Virgin’s dormition or falling asleep.

Now, let us focus on the two whose bodies never suffered the corruption of the tomb: Jesus and Mary. They are the Redeemer and the first Redeemed. In these two, God’s plan is complete; in these two the end of the world has already arrived.

Now, we should observe two meanings of that word “end”. “Termination”, referring to what went before, and “goal”, which, having been attained, continues after. So, the finish-line of a race is the termination of the race and the goal which gives to the winner the glory of victory. Such is the end of this mortal life.

The Second Vatican Council taught: “Already the final age of the world has come upon us and the renovation of the world is irrevocably decreed and is already anticipated in some kind of a real way.” (LG 48) The renovation is anticipated completely and fully in Jesus and Mary.

When you enter a Catholic Church and adore the Body of Christ in the tabernacle, you are adoring the glorious Body of the Son of God, seated at the right hand of the Father. The end of the world is right there before you in the Holy Eucharist. When Christ returns in glory, the reality at present hidden beneath the veil of the sacrament will be made manifest.

Holy Communion is given us, we might say, to bring that “end” into our lives, into our hearts, transforming us from within, so that we might be ready for the glorious manifestation of the reality. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. (Jn 6:54)

That is the Body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, which transforms our souls, preparing our bodies for the resurrection and the completion of God’s plan of salvation. In view of her maternal role in relation to the Body, head and members, the Blessed Virgin Mary was redeemed beforehand in her Immaculate Conception, sanctified in anticipation of the Body she was to bear in her womb. She was made to be the perfect collaborator in her Son’s work of Redemption, standing faithfully by him at the foot of the Cross, and the perfect fulfillment of that work, delivered from corruption and raised up with him in glory.

At the foot of the Cross, as he offered himself for our salvation, she joined herself, as the Immaculata, to his offering on our behalf. Now that he has completed his work and ascended into heaven, as our great high priest, he lives always to intercede for us, (cf. Heb 7:25) presenting always to the Father his glorious wounds, a living sacrifice in which we participate here and now through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. (cf. He 9:11-14) So also, the Blessed Virgin, raised up with him in glory, joins her prayers to his sacrificial intercession.

God’s plan of salvation is complete in Jesus and Mary; in them the end of the world has already arrived. We should desire that the end reach its completion in us, through the sacrifice of Jesus and the intercession of Mary. Then we will be able to look forward with confidence to the end of the world.

In the meantime, we can hold on to the holy rosary, as a little chain that ties us to our Mother, securely attaching us to the end that she has already attained.