SAINT AUGUSTINE'S, GRAHAME PARK
  • ABOUT US
    • Identity Statement >
      • Mission through the Eucharist
      • Sant Augustine of Canterbury - Legacy
      • Serving the Catholicity of Church - A Compassionate Mission
    • A Brief History of the Estate
    • Resources for our DCC members
    • Our personal data policy
    • Contact us
    • Financial Support
  • WHAT'S ON
    • This week's services and newspaper
    • Sunday School and Mass For Children
    • LIVE STREAM - Services/Prayers
    • Our Youtube and Facebook Channels
    • Our Social Media Notice Board
  • DONATIONS
  • SPIRITUALITY
    • PASTORAL CARE >
      • Visiting the sick
      • Weddings/ Reading of Banns
      • Funerals, bereavement
      • Baptism
      • Monastery Without Walls - Join Us
      • Confessions (Reconciliation)
    • Daily Online Old Testament study with Rabbi Gordon
    • Daily Online Bible Study
    • Daily meditations on the readings of the Mass
    • Sermons
    • The Rule of Saint Benedict in the life of our community
    • A Selection of Prayers
    • A Short Catechism - Christian faith
    • How to pray the ROSARY
    • Media Resources
    • 'Monastery Without Walls'
    • An Ignatian Spiritual Retreat
  • BLOG
  • GALLERY of our Events
    • Photo-meditations
    • For Children
    • Confirmation 2017 >
      • Confirmation and First Communion 2016
  • Hall Rental
  • YOUTHWORK
    • Art Workshops for children
    • Guitar Classes
  • our SOCIAL MEDIA
  • NURSERY

Our Biblical Blog /'Examined Life'

Mary's Assumption as Ours

8/16/2020

0 Comments

 
The feast of the Assumption remembers how Mary, at the moment of her death, immediately was taken up to Heaven. The feast celebrates the fulfilment of her complete co-operation with God’s plan for our salvation. All this started with her first Fiat, (let it be according to your will, and continued via her many ‘yes-es’ in support of her son’s redemptive work.)  

However, we also celebrate in her our own hoped arrival to the House of Love. She was ‘the first citizen’ of Heaven, who entered it from among us. ‘Let us pray that we will join Mary, the mother of the Lord, in the glory of heaven.’ (Opening Prayer) 
These are those aspects of the feast, which our believing intellect can grasp and understand through faith. The human person (‘the speaking being’) starts its journey into language when listening and looking up our mother’s words and face. Similarly, today’s feast is about contemplating Our Mother in order to ‘imitate’ her, and learn the language of our coming life. One of the first 'words' we learn is Mary’s yes to God’s will. ‘Let it be according to Thy word!’ Like the repeating heartbeats of our faith.  
But there is a second ‘region’ of meaning of the Assumption. In the coming week, let us meditate on it, all of us, individually… Let us ask ourselves, why is the celebration of the Mother of God is so important, nay, timely today? What is the message of Mary’s divine motherhood? Why is she such an important ‘blueprint’ of our human love? For that human love, which, as she has shown, can intermingle with divine Love itself?  In answering this question, I mention two reasons here.
Julia Kristeva observes, as a criticism, that Christianity’s is the last discourse on motherhood, and Life itself, we could add. Our secular culture, which is so clever in many ways, gives zero instruction and support to what it means to be a mother. Our Christian faith, unfalteringly, keeps us evaluating and appreciating the unique role of mothers, and fathers.  
Two third of today’s children grow up without the experience of a father’s love. Perhaps the same can be said, in a symbolic way, that two third of people grow up without ‘the Father’s love’, the most precious experience of being brought up in the family of the Church. 
That is why it is so important to hold in our hands the ‘hologram’ of the completeness of Love. This unbroken and wholeness of Love is there; is always offered to us to be healed by, to be nourished by, to be guided by, to be brought up by.  
If broken families, broken individuals, broken societies -broken neighbourhoods -could contemplate this Emmanuel, this Love-with-us, through our Lady as the mother of all, it would make the missing difference in our lives. It would not sort out our problems, yet, it would be a beginning, a beginning anew with God. Just as the Mary and Joseph had to undertake a challenging, many times a seemingly impossible journey, full of dangers. The Assumption assures us that our paths can be ‘taken up’, and we can continue our journey closer to God, closer to the life and happiness God has envisioned for us, from our mother’s womb.  
Finally, the Feast of the Assumption also wants us to be realistic. It is not about an idealising of our coming state. The Assumption is not an escapism into an ideal world vs. the confines of our daily life. Mary's return from earth to Heaven embraces all aspects of our lives. It is a celebration of our daily toiling, the banalities of existence. Not simply that our coming 'assumption' will sanctify it. Today's feast is the celebration of the value of the present moment, that of our present day. For they ground our coming life. They create opportunities to get closer to God. Every single day is part of our soul's ascension. Let us celebrate this mystery today with the Mother of God.


15.08.2020 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    newmansermon4advent.docx
    File Size: 23 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File

    newmansermon4advent.pdf
    File Size: 108 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    j_h_newman_advent_sermon1.pdf
    File Size: 107 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    j_h_newman_advent_sermon1.docx
    File Size: 23 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File

    living_in_imagination_vs_real.docx
    File Size: 260 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File

    living_in_imagination_vs_real.pdf
    File Size: 179 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    Support OUR FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN

    Soliloquy

    These are verbal Icons, expressions of how the world is seen from Saint Augustine's..

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    May 2022
    March 2022
    November 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    Categories

    All

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • ABOUT US
    • Identity Statement >
      • Mission through the Eucharist
      • Sant Augustine of Canterbury - Legacy
      • Serving the Catholicity of Church - A Compassionate Mission
    • A Brief History of the Estate
    • Resources for our DCC members
    • Our personal data policy
    • Contact us
    • Financial Support
  • WHAT'S ON
    • This week's services and newspaper
    • Sunday School and Mass For Children
    • LIVE STREAM - Services/Prayers
    • Our Youtube and Facebook Channels
    • Our Social Media Notice Board
  • DONATIONS
  • SPIRITUALITY
    • PASTORAL CARE >
      • Visiting the sick
      • Weddings/ Reading of Banns
      • Funerals, bereavement
      • Baptism
      • Monastery Without Walls - Join Us
      • Confessions (Reconciliation)
    • Daily Online Old Testament study with Rabbi Gordon
    • Daily Online Bible Study
    • Daily meditations on the readings of the Mass
    • Sermons
    • The Rule of Saint Benedict in the life of our community
    • A Selection of Prayers
    • A Short Catechism - Christian faith
    • How to pray the ROSARY
    • Media Resources
    • 'Monastery Without Walls'
    • An Ignatian Spiritual Retreat
  • BLOG
  • GALLERY of our Events
    • Photo-meditations
    • For Children
    • Confirmation 2017 >
      • Confirmation and First Communion 2016
  • Hall Rental
  • YOUTHWORK
    • Art Workshops for children
    • Guitar Classes
  • our SOCIAL MEDIA
  • NURSERY