Homily for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

After dying together in a freak accident, three friends go to Heaven for an orientation session. They are all asked the same question: "When you are in your casket and family and friends are mourning over you, what would you like to hear them say about you?"

The first guy responds: "I would like to hear them say that I was one of the greatest doctors of my time and a great family man."

The second guy says: "I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and a school teacher who made a huge difference in the children of tomorrow."

The third guy thinks for a while and then replies: "I guess I'd like to hear them say, 'Look – he's moving!'"

There are a lot of jokes about heaven, and I suppose it’s because we have a lot of questions about what it will be like.

It's natural to have questions about what happens after we die. Every religion seeks to provide answers to this ultimate question. Today's feast reflects on what happens after death, offering a key to understanding the profound mysteries of our lives. In the Christian perspective, we find hope and purpose in understanding that our journey continues beyond death.

If you look at Mary's life as recorded in the Gospels, on the surface, there is nothing special about it. It is a life of faith, not vision. Only divine Revelation lets us look at the hidden glory of her life. Revelation tells us that at her death, she was assumed body and soul into Heaven, a belief that signifies her unique role in salvation history and her special relationship with her son, Jesus.

Because of Christ's Resurrection and Mary's Assumption, we have hope that our death is a beginning, but also that in our life, we can look back from that vantage point and find the infinite in the finite. There is so much more going on in our lives than we can see, understand, or even imagine. When Mary conceived Jesus in her womb, she had a life within her life. Every woman who has conceived must have experienced this—a life within her life. This seems to be a model of the Christian life: We have the life of God within our lives. We must be attentive to the life we bear, nurture it, and bring forth its fruit. Nothing is as it seems. Death is life, suffering is redemptive, and mortality becomes immortality.