{"id":7138,"date":"2021-08-15T10:53:03","date_gmt":"2021-08-15T09:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=7138"},"modified":"2021-09-07T10:55:59","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T09:55:59","slug":"commentary-on-the-solemnity-of-assumption-bvm-15-08-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-on-the-solemnity-of-assumption-bvm-15-08-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on the solemnity of Assumption BVM 15.08.2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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Lk 1:39-56<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Muslims have a tradition that Mohammed was illiterate. It is a way of saying that the Koran was God’s production, not his. This tradition is similar, as far as it goes, to the Christian teaching about Mary\u2019s virginity. One of the differences is that the normal way of nature requires only one author for a book, but two parents for a child. Muslims then can say that the Koran is not a human production at all, but Christians can say that Jesus is fully from God and also fully human. \u201cPerfectus Deus, perfectus homo,\u201d says the Athanasian Creed.<\/p>\n

Human. What is human? Many say human when they mean human pride. When the Roman emperor Nero saw his immense palace\u2014the domus aurea<\/em>\u2014finally completed, having burnt down part of the city to make way for it, he said, \u201cAh, at last a house fit for a man!\u201d Many who are less extreme than he (there have been very few who were more) would still think of human life as consisting in some degree of success, power, recognition\u2026.<\/p>\n

By every standard of the day, Mary was only barely human. She was not only female in a world ruled by men, she was unmarried (though betrothed); she was young in a world that valued age; she was poor in a world that saw poverty as God’s curse; she was a peasant remote from the centres of power. Yet the Liturgy calls her \u201cthe greatest honour of our race.\u201d (Incidentally, did the person who composed that line forget about Jesus at that point?) \u2018Human\u2019 must mean something deeper than power, recognition, and the rest.<\/p>\n

Is she powerless then? \u201cI am the servant of the Lord,\u201d she said, \u201clet it be done to me according to your word.\u201d Does it confirm her in her identity as a powerless woman, passive and dependent? If so, then it confirms all women in that identity. But more: it confirms all disciples, all Christians \u2013 for Mary is seen as the perfect disciple, the model for all disciples, men as well as women. Was she powerless?<\/p>\n

Far from it. As she crossed the hill country to visit her elderly cousin, she was not bearing a child for her husband. She was in the role of a prophet. \u201cThe Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you,\u201d as later the Spirit would later overshadow Jesus at the Transfiguration (Lk 9:34), and the group of disciples in the upper room (Acts 1:8). In her, God is doing a new thing. She does not model conventionality and social compliance; she is in the line of Old Testament valiant women, as her Magnificat<\/em> makes clear. In her the spiritual paradox of power and powerlessness is plain to see.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie \u00a0 Lk 1:39-56 Muslims have a tradition that Mohammed was illiterate. It is a way of saying that the Koran was God’s production, not his. This tradition is similar, as far as it goes, to the Christian teaching about Mary\u2019s virginity. One of the differences is that the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7140,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7138\/revisions\/7140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}