The Feast of St. Mary's Assumption into Heaven is a day of great holiness for us, and whether they keep it and focus on it as much as we do or less, a day of such significance and meaning for the whole Church, for all Christians everywhere. This Feast, today, shows, of course, humanity at its best, finest, most devout, and shows, more fully and finally, what we are capable of than any other Day of the Year. Most of the Feasts show all that God did for us. This day shows what humans can do in response, in the best, finest, most faithful way

It can be for us, a day to do more than celebrate and rejoice in the example of the Blessed Virgin - it can be a serious and sensible time to commit ourselves to greater fidelity, trust and service to our Lord, inspired by the glorious example of our Lady.

Throughout her life, Mary shows us what it means to be faithful to God. And at the end of that life we see the glorious vision of the faithfulness of God. Having proved herself faithful above all others, Mary was granted unusual treatment at the time of her departing from this mortal life. The body that bore the Incarnate Word would not molder in an earthly grave.

Our theology, our belief in Jesus' genuine, real humanity requires that we not picture Mary as standing completely outside of human life, utterly unlike us. And so, many well meaning people, discourage perceptions that remove her from human reality.

But our abiding knowledge of God and our experience of him, never requires us to insist that he does not or cannot pour out special grace and special treatment upon one so blessed in her favor with God.

While Anglicans are shy about dogmatic reliance on the Assumption, we can still maintain that this is reasonable and holy hope, this is a sound and godly doctrine, this is a grace-filled insight into the characteristic nature of God, that Mary was taken up into heaven, body and soul, with the love and care of God and the sweetness and tenderness of the well-beloved Son through the power of that intimately known Spirit, and to the general rejoicing of the whole company of heaven.

Promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church as a Dogma ("belief necessary for salvation") only as recently as the mid-20th century, we may lose sight of how ancient this pious belief is: St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem declared at Council of Chalcedon, 451 AD, that St. Mary died in the presence of the Apostles, but when her tomb was opened, at the request of St. Thomas to secure a relic, it was empty - they concluded she had been taken, body and soul, into Heaven. St. Augustine and St. Jerome, in the 5th century, unhesitatingly accepted and fervently taught this.

We quietly maintain that she, no less than old Simeon, departed in peace, but that this departure partook of special peace, a peace that passes our understanding, but does not go beyond our conception, that she was set free from the constraints of this mortal life in a special way. Other, more ordinary understandings of Mary's death are possible and are held by believing Christians.

When we get too theologically precise, controversy erupts. Questions that cannot yet be answered arise. I don't know that they are necessary questions or critical to our life and faith.

We can, and many do, delve deeply into the nuances of the theological structure of our faith, but there is also a realm for a simple, untroubled joy in rejoicing and celebrating the heart of the mystery without examining each nook and cranny.

Faced with questions that cannot be fully and finally answered at this stage, we can be content with straightforward and more manageable questions: how does our knowledge of Mary and her way of life and her responses to God and the movement of grace in her life, and the moment of grace at her end, how does all of that help us in our lives?

In our contemplation of her being set free, taken into God's own presence and love in a favored and miraculous way, we gather encouragement about how we might set free from the constraints we face now, regardless of the hour of our death.

The eyes of our faith and the imaginations of our hearts are opened to expect and believe that he will take us as well to himself, in a special and grace-filled and also fairly miraculous way, each and every day as we turn to him in faith and trust, in contrition and communion.

A genuine, literal Assumption at the end of a life like St. Mary's is so reassuring, so illuminating - it shows so clearly what we mean by God being unchangeable, without variation.

Once we are beloved by God, it is forever, without any diminishment, once we have been drawn into him, into sharing in his purpose drawn into cooperating with his love we never decline or fade in his eyes, we never move to the edge or off the screen.

Called by God, loved by God, used gloriously by God, Mary was never left by God, abandoned by God, forgotten by God. The Assumption is the final proof that God never forgets his love or ours.