Pope on Assumption: God saves the
whole person, body and soul
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| Pope Francis greets the faithful on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.- AFP |
At the Angelus for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope Francis focused on the truth that God wills to save
the whole human person, body and soul.
By Christopher Wells
“The Church today invites us to contemplate” the mystery of
the Blessed Virgin Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven. That was the message
of Pope Francis at the Angelus on Wednesday. This mystery, he said, “shows us
that God wills to save the whole human person: body and soul.”
For the Solemnity of the Assumption, the Holy Father
explained that, at the end of her life, Mary was taken “body and soul” into
heaven; her body “did not know the corruption of the grave.” This, he said, was
a special privilege granted to the Mother of God on account of her unique
corporal and spiritual union with her Son, Jesus.
This privilege, he continued, “gives us the confirmation of
our own glorious destiny.” In the past, philosophers had understood the value
of the human soul, and that it was destined to happiness. But they could not
conceive that the body, too was destined for heavenly beatitude in union with
the soul. This is the Christian doctrine of the “resurrection of the body,”
which Pope Francis described as “an element proper to Christian revelation
[and] a pivotal element of our faith.”
But the Assumption, while reminding us of the unity of the
human person, also reminds us “that we are called to serve and glorify God with
our whole being,” body and soul. “Serving God only with the body would be an
act of a slave,” the Pope said; while “serving Him only with the soul would be
in contrast with our human nature.”
Pope Francis concluded his reflection with words of
encouragement: “If we have lived in this way, in the joyful service of God,
which is expressed also in generous service to our brothers, our destiny, on
the day of the resurrection, will be like that of our heavenly Mother. It will
be given to us, then, to realize fully the exhortation of Saint Paul: ‘Glorify
God in your body!’ and we will glorify him forever in heaven.”
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