Before church this morning, I had to go to Riverside farmers' market and shop for the week's organic veggies and special local cheese, as Clare was still in recovery mode. Then, I joined the congregation of St Mary's Bute Street for today's Feast of the Assumption. Father Graham was in good form, preaching engagingly about Our Lady in the Bible.
I don't think I ever observed the Feast of the Assumption growing up at Holy Trinity Ystrad Mynach, but the first time ever, I do recall. Clare and I went back-packing around Crete, in 1967 just before I started training for ministry at St Michael's Llandaff. We were adopted by Yanni Motakis, an olive farmer who was curious about the rare visitors to his off-the-beaten-track village. He gave us hospitality, showed us around and took us to church on Sunday and for the feast of the Assumption. There was a procession with icons of our Lady around the outside of the church after the Divine Liturgy, with festive music and food in the evening. I couldn't help thinking about that during worship today.
The diversity of dogma, eastern and western on the subject of how Mary's life came to a conclusion fitting for the Mother of our Saviour has always been something of a conundrum to me. I'd rather stick with a measure of Anglican reticence on the subject. Yet, it's always seemed right to me to celebrate the humanity of Jesus through his mother's closeness to his calling and his cause - she who was always there for him, following him, caring for him, and in the end, suffering with him, helpless at the foot of the cross. We can barely imagine what it was like for her to meet him alive again, and to be there with his disciples awaiting the promised Spirit after his departure with the authority and experience of a trust far greater than all the twelve had been through, having known Jesus all his life. It's no wonder that devotion to Mary developed so early on in Christian history, and is still developing today.
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