Assumption assumptions

When I posted the last entry, I was not entirely sure that I was saying what I wanted to say as clearly as I wanted to say it. Then I received a comment which asked why I felt the assumption was stretching my capacity for belief too far when I was happy to affirm such things as the resurrection and the transfiguration, particularly as the assumption would be "one of the easier wonders" to perform. This resembles the defence of the Immaculate Conception made by Duns Scotus, the great mediaeval Franciscan philosopher and theologian, when he said: potuit, decuit, ergo fecit (God could do it, it was fitting that he did it, and therefore he did it). But did God agree with Duns Scotus, or was the latter assuming too much? (Pun intended, I fear.)

I believe that the Mother of God reigns in glory, that she appeared to such saints as Seraphim of Sarov, and that by the Holy Spirit (as St Silouan of tne Holy Mountain says) she sees us and hears our prayers. However, I also believe (with Lossky - humbly, I might say!) that the glories of Our Lady are part of the inner mystery of the Church, and not necessarily to be proclaimed from the rooftops. But I should also wish to affirm my belief (gratefully!) in the continuing experience of the Blessed Virgin as the Mother of the Church which has been integral to Catholic Christianity up to the present day.

In Caelum

Well did she? Did the Mother of God fly into the heavens, body and soul, like the shuttle from Cape Canaveral? Pope Pius the Twelfth said she did and proved it by saying so infallibly in 1950. The Eastern Orthodox on the other hand combine a certain mystical fuzziness about it with a liking for an apocryphal sixth-century farrago on the subject which begins as follows: 'As the all-holy glorious Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, as was her wont, was going to the holy tomb of our Lord to burn incense, and bending her holy knees, she was importunate that Christ our God who had been born of her should return to her...and while she was praying, it came to pass that the heavens were opened, and the archangel Gabriel came down to her and said: "Hail, thou that didst bring forth Christ our God! Thy prayer having come through to the heavens to Him who was born of thee, has been accepted; and from this time, according to thy request, thou having left the world, shall go to the heavenly places to thy Son, into the true and everlasting life."' A little later in this account we learn that Our Lady asked for the presence of the holy apostles at her passing, and so they were borne on clouds by a whirlwind to witness her departure. Hence the ikons which show them getting a good view of the proceedings from somewhere in mid-air.

Well, scripture says something almost as fantastic about Elijah and perhaps Enoch as well, and I can't help feeling that if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for the Mother of God. But it does, I think, push my capacity for belief just a bit too far. And it makes me fairly indignant as well. Why does every detail have to be rewritten by the (fairly dim) light of human piety? And why does the lily have to be so thoroughly and comprehensively gilded? As the Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky observed, 'The authors of the apocryphal writings often alluded imprudently to mysteries about which the Church had maintained a prudent silence...The Mother of God was never a theme of the public preaching of the apostles...While Christ was preached on the housetops in a catechesis addressed to the whole universe, the mystery of the Mother of God was revealed only to those within the Church.'

Even King James the First said that the Blessed Virgin was far above all God's creatures, and the assumption, whether literally true or not, is surely a celebration of that fact. To whatever glory human beings are destined (and that is surely to do with their sharing in the divine nature, as in 2 Peter) Our Lady is already there. St Gregory Palamas described her as the Boundary between the Created and the Uncreated, which seems all right to me. But to quote Lossky again, 'Let us therefore keep silence, and let us not try to dogmatize about the supreme glory of the Mother of God.'

Assumpta est Maria

On Sunday we will be keeping the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. I realise, of course, that we will be somewhat tardy in our observance of this solemnity, but for years now (with episcopal permission) we have kept most of the major festivals on the Sundays following. The days when Father Roger Taylor could expect a full turnout at 6am in St Peter's for festivals (followed by breakfast in the hall) are long gone, and even the evenings seem to be somewhat occupied ever since they started showing the Forsyte Saga on television with our own, our very own Nyree Dawn Porter over-acting all across the little black-and-white screen. However in our defence, I would remind you of the former practice of 'Sundays in the Octave' - not to mention After-feasts in churches further to the liturgical east.

In my childhood the Assumption did not loom large in New Zealand Anglicanism, indeed it didn't loom in it at all. Not until I arrived in the northern hemisphere in 1969 did I discover it outside the pages of book (the Missale Romanum, I fear). Remarkably, perhaps, this was at All Saints, Margaret Street W1, on a beautiful summer's evening. Remarkable, because exactly ten years later I would be observing the same festival in the same church, but on the other side of the altar rail.

Not long before my ordination (as I wrote in a previous entry) I travelled with a fellow-ordinand (and another of his friends) to what was then the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. We went by way of Austria, and found ourselves on the eve of the Assumption in a campsite halfway up a mountain overlooking Salzburg. And I hated it. It was early evening, the weather was glorious and the view breathtakingly beautiful. And I hated it. My travelling companions had suggested that we had no need for lunch, afternoon tea, or the merest of snacks, especially since we had a long way to go, "So you won't mind, will you Carl, if we drive on without stopping?" Well yes I did, but as the hearty healthy Kiwi Joker travelling with a couple of effete Poms, of course I agreed.

In my father's family there is something of a history of problems with low blood sugar. So by the time my travelling companions were congratulating themselves at having arrived at Salzburg in time to enjoy the splendid view before the sun went down, I had become not just suicidal but vaguely homicidal as well. And I hated the view. But then there was a miracle! Baked beans cooked on a little primus stove wrought an almost Damascus Road-like conversion in my attitude to life, the universe, and everything - all within twenty minutes or so. And the view improved as well.

Having made a splendid recovery I made my way with the others on the following glossy morning through the pealing of church bells to the beautiful cathedral for High Mass of the feast. As the annual Salzburg Festival was still in full swing, the musical setting was to be (and indeed was) Orazio Benevoli's Mass in fifty-seven parts, a little baroque extravagance requiring four choirs, four chamber orchestras and about eight soloists. Wonderful! We positioned ourselves near the front of the nave (standing room only) and awaited the solemn arrival of the Sacred Ministers and the commencement of the Holy Mysteries.

And here they come! About half-a-dozen rather elderly canons in golden fiddleback chasubles (good), the archbishop of Salzburg himself (splendid), and an extra cardinal (for good luck). But where are they going? Can they not see the beautiful high altar rearing up at the east end of the cathedral? Why are they heading for a mere ironing board in the crossing - and why are my homicidal feelings returning? I have had a good breakfast after all. But I could have thrown it up when the service began with William Cardinal Conway, (titular) archbishop of Armagh, greeting all us Austrian Catholics at some length in the same dialect (if not the same tone of voice) which we have come to associate with that other monument of Irish Christianity, Dr Ian Paisley. It is true that nothing could detract from the unique glory of the Mother of God on the greatest of her festivals, but the clergy certainly gave it their best shot, alas.

However the music was OK. Just.