Death and Life

In India, 15th August is a double feast: the Assumption of our Blessed Mother, and the Independence Day. We thank and salute the hundreds and thousands who gave us freedom as we celebrate our Independence Day. They were not afraid of dying so that they might give us life. We thank God for their sacrifices.

The Assumption celebrates the teaching that Mary was assumed body and soul directly into heaven. So when we say she was assumed bodily into heaven, what do we mean? Even in English, this is not very clear. Theologically it means she has special privileges afforded to her body since she carried the Son of God in her womb. But historically, the church has disputed whether or not this means Mary actually died. Some have preferred the term dormition, the idea that Mary just went to sleep and woke up Queen of Heaven. Others insist that she certainly died but just as surely did not suffer decay. How could the Ark of the Covenant, which carried God’s holy word so immediately within her, know the spoil of sin in death? Somewhere in the heart of history, a woman’s body has been considered too holy to touch, too precious to lose. After twenty centuries, that is still news.

This celebration is not merely of Mary, but all of us. It is our hope that we too will have the same fate as Mary. Our death will be a gateway to new life; death will not be the end of us. We will live, but in a transformed state. Death and life will be united. As Ken Wilber says, "The fact that life and death are 'not two' is extremely difficult to grasp, not because it is so complex, but because it is so simple." Of course, we miss the unity of life and death when our ordinary mind begins to think about it. The ultimate significance, or at least one, is this: We are made for transcendence and endless horizons.

Though we are vaguely aware of our transcendent and spiritual nature, our small ego usually gets in the way. Instead of seeking a deeper truth about ourselves, we become involved in petty preoccupations and in the selfish anxieties of our lives. But the good news is this. God is not far away from the mess of our lives. He is found within that very mess of our daily, ordinary, humdrum lives. The very failures and radical insufficiency of our lives are what lead us into larger life and love. Let us not be afraid of dying to our egos and selfishness; let us not be afraid of entering death in any form; let us not be afraid of entering deep into our lives. For God is found at the depth and in the death of everything.