When I was a little boy, on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, my mother would tell me to go down to the Newark Bay, just a few blocks from my home in Bayonne, NJ, and go into the water. There’s a blessing in the water today, she told me. 

I learned later where that custom came from. In medieval Europe the Feast of the Assumption was the day the fields were blessed. The middle of August was harvest time, and on this day herbs were gathered from the fields and brought to the church to be blessed with water. After they were blessed they were brought home to be  medicines for the sick. We still get many if not most of our medicines today from herbs.

Customarily, a sprig was placed on the wall where children slept, asking God to keep them healthy and strong. 

We will have herbs, a small olive tree, fruits of the earth and flowers before our altar for the feast on August 15 and then we will have a procession to our Mary Garden to bless them..

Many important feasts of our church occur in one of nature’s cycles. The birth of Jesus Christ, December 25, is celebrated as darkness gives way to light in the Western Hemisphere. Easter, the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus takes place during the Passover celebration, which occurrs at the spring harvest. Mary’s Assumption, August 15th, falls as the summer harvest begins. 

You can see why Mary’s Assumption into heaven is a day to bless herbs and to bless the fields. It’s a feast of life. On this day Mary followed Jesus, her Son, into the mystery of his death and resurrection in a unique way. Mary’s body, her humanity, like the humanity Jesus assumed, like the humanity we all share, came from the earth.

We all come from dust, from creation, and to dust we shall return.“From dust you are, and to dust you shall return,” we are reminded on Ash Wednesday. But the promise we have from Jesus is that this dust will rise again to new life.

Mary witnesses to his promise in a unique was. Mary’s body, like the body of Jesus, never returned to the dust. She was assumed body and soul into heaven to become a sign of bodily resurrection. The promise of resurrection given to her is also given to us. Not only is it given to us, but to all God’s creation. Mary is the sign of a new creation, promised by God.

The first reading for her feast, from the Book of Revelation, describes Mary as a woman “ clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations.”  After his resurrection, Jesus was enthroned in heaven and Mary was taken up to heaven to join him.

The Assumption of Mary is a time to rejoice in “the resurrection of the body and life everlasting”, the whole created world also rejoices in the promise of a new creation. Listen to Psalm 96:

O sing a new song to the Lord, sing to the Lord all the earth. O sing to the Lord, bless his name. Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad, let the sea and all within it thunder praise, let the land and all it bears rejoice, all the trees of the wood shout for joy at the presence of the Lord for he comes, he comes to rule the earth.

The Feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven offers a future so different than the bleak picture of life we’re tempted to see today. She visits us today as she did her cousin Elizabeth long ago announcing a great mystery. We are called, like Mary, to a heavenly place with Jesus her Son. Our world, so battered with the storms and disease, so threatened by a changing climate, wars and poverty, also sees a glorious future in her assumption into heaven.

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.