Today we celebrate the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of Jesus into heaven. We celebrate her extraordinary life, not for its fame or riches but for her prominence and abundance of a heavenly kind.
God chose the least likely, from the most obscure place to do the most unexpected task. Kingdom values is our world turned upside down; they are not what this world would applaud. Mary was a poor, unmarried, uneducated teenage girl who lived in an insignificant town. God knew she would be perfect to be the mother of His son not for the earthly security she would bring Jesus but because he knew the goodness of her heart.
In today’s Gospel we hear Mary’s song, The Magnificat. Her song is more than a melodious “thank you,” it is a song proclaiming God’s justice about how He will use her and the child she is bearing to right the imbalances of all humankind. This is a song about bringing down systems of injustice, about breaking chains of generational oppression, a song heralding the arrival of Christ and the fullness of God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
The Magnificat is a song of God’s putting things right-side up after they’ve been upside down for so long.
Like Mary, we all live in a world that is upside-down, a world where injustice and systemic sin control far too much. So many of us are blinded by our own comfort, greed, and selfishness to see that every life matters.
Yet Mary still sings, and we sing with her a song of hope knowing that this world with all its brokenness and injustice is not all there is. Christ is among us in the power of the Holy Spirit to inspire us to do the Lord’s work of justice.
How can we turn the values of the kingdom right-side up in our own lives?
Last week our Bishops released the Social Justice Statement 2021-22: Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, affirming that “we human beings need a change of heart, mind, and behaviour”. As our earth cries out from ecological disasters like droughts, floods and bushfires; so our poor and vulnerable cry out from the suffering that comes from the destruction of our common home.
What can we do?
Let us join Pope Francis’ on a seven-year journey towards total ecological sustainability, guided by seven Laudato Si’ Goals. These Goals are: response to the cry of the earth, response to the cry of the poor, ecological economics, sustainable lifestyles, ecological spirituality, ecological education, and community engagement and participatory action. To learn more and prayerfully discern your next step please click here.