Aug 7, 2025 Written by 

ASSUMPTION, MARY SPIRITUAL GUIDE

The itinerary of the creature (and of the Church) who realises in herself the victory of Life over death

 

Mary is Icon of how to find the right path, from which the vicissitudes of life can lead us away or take us away.

Emblem of those who are on their own and conforming path, Gem of comparison for not betraying our identity-vocational character and innate disposition.

Like Her, however, surrendering ourselves; yet changing. And thus realising our true nature, in the pilgrimage towards the Core of Being - being present to things, in the different ways of being in the world, sharply.

His soul possessed a youthful freshness, an ability to approach itself without losing the scope of feedback: in realising, living from every Gift.

Those who follow his style embrace and adore the unexpected, and when the Newness of the Spirit suddenly bursts in, they immediately know how to make room for it.

The attitude of his soul did not turn to banal repetitiveness: amazed by a Word, stunned by the unexpected, surprised by a Wound.

Itinerant, she taught to open the heart and mind to new paths that not only dodged but even flew over the preponderance of conditioning.

She spontaneously activated streams of possibilities that put so many habits behind them, without even fighting them.

Maria disposed herself to grasp the variants, the nuances of the soul; even the unaccustomed feelings that we may be loathe to attribute to her and which she felt instead. Sometimes even losing herself in the labyrinths of a frightening struggle with the 'dragon', the ideology of power.

A full life, as a mother of a family, not as an incorporeal creature who only recoils.

 

Nothing naive or subservient. A free woman, Maria sets off without asking for permission from the backward, hierarchical and still patriarchal society.

And she does not associate herself with reassuring caravans, because she is not a person of the herd but of novelty.

She did not set out along the Jordan, which was the beaten and safe road. But why risk your life in a hostile land? Because love knows no obstacle.

And exuberance does not repeat conformity. Life that flows from Galilee to Judea, that is, from the periphery to the official religious centre, never vice versa.

 

Not infrequently, for the devout in an observant territory, any announcement of life and any novelty are perceived with extreme distrust [an attack on one's security and personal offence, instead of service].

This is why when she arrives at the house of the man of worship she does not even 'greet' him. Elizabeth (she too seems to be a forgotten one) cultivated the promise ["Elì-shébet" the Lord My-Personal has sworn; as in "God is faithful to Me"].

He Zechariah ["Zachar-Ja" the Lord yes but not Mine but of Israel "remembers"; OK, God does not suffer amnesia but has been, has been... and who knows when 'He comes']. He could not move from religiosity to Faith.

Usual cliché, not innate ability:

In ancient religions the priest is the elder of great reminiscences. He makes devout memories - all right - but as if still in a museum, almost embalming temporal decay.

The man of the cult is part of a class that likes to frequent the places that count; refractory to a Spirit that insists and appeals, that throws life [also of institutes] into the air by breaching and inflaming consciences, to stir up situations.

Here instead is the poor woman. She prophesies - like the first communities of evangelisation that are represented there in a watermark.

She was not a legal person in that culture, rather a non-person, who even had to ask permission from her son, about everything.

The opposite of authority and officialdom (inside and outside the House), who remained incapable of communicating anything: not 'blessed' but unhappy; 'mute' because he had nothing more to say to those waiting outside the Temple.

Nothing vital and no real blessing to pass on to people; zero with which to fill the existence of his neighbour.

So the Soul Bride girl is the one who seems to ignore the still practitioner of the sacred and the ritual!

She does not even speak to him - for she is destined for 'heavenly glory', not to be drawn into the minutiae of reasoning and a rationality that makes love pale.

 

Creature and authentic community that reflects Jesus.

Instead, it teaches us to do our part, precisely by attempting to allow the things we like and the dissimilarities that arise to coexist.

All this, without inhibitions - seeking the Meaning of contradictions instead of taming them regardless; because one-sidedness would have made her fragile, arid, incomplete.

So she accepted to make the multifaceted situations cohabit within her and make them coexist with the facets of the many appeals, the afflatus of caring and the spirit of decision - as an emancipated woman.

As today's Liturgy recites, the Assumption accepted the Desert but found a Refuge, "forgetting her people and her father's house".Solidarity, Sobriety, Silence: the Exodus experience. Novelty, Fraternity and Person Horizon that enable the rediscovery of one's seed - and the meaning of the Church.

 

Mary teaches the paradoxical existence of the believer, who knows his lowliness and the Unpredictability of God: in her story we recognise the ideal path of our journey.

We cannot ignore that in the world sometimes strength prevails over weakness, need makes love pale, decline seems to ridicule life...

But in the dialectic of losing oneself in order to find oneself again, we introduce new energies; we acquire, like her, an ability to see graves wide open, glimpsing life even in places of death.

In this way, Lk is the evangelist who celebrates the reversals of situations [Pharisee and publican, first and last place, scape-goat son and first-born; and so on].

In these reversals, Life in the Spirit does not reveal itself as a replication that reassures or sanctifies positions, but as an attitude of gain in loss; a flowering in the bitterness of the cross.

A knowing how to find opportunities for growth even in the apparent degradation of the corrupt [even pious and respectable] world.

And in us? The redefinition of what is 'affair or humiliation' can become redeemed history, the authentic disruptive force in the course of events, and of any affair.

Indeed, in the helpless and incapable of miracles lies the perception of a power that can reclaim the whole being. Virtue that recomposes the harmony of the vital wave.

Project that wants to raise the poor from the rubbish, to transform us into masterpieces - starting from the truth of pitocche radici [where we are ourselves].

The challenge of Faith is open.

4 Last modified on Thursday, 07 August 2025 15:57
don Giuseppe Nespeca

Giuseppe Nespeca è architetto e sacerdote. Cultore della Sacra scrittura è autore della raccolta "Due Fuochi due Vie - Religione e Fede, Vangeli e Tao"; coautore del libro "Dialogo e Solstizio".

It is a huge message of hope for each of us, for you whose days are always the same, tiring and often difficult. Mary reminds you today that God calls you too to this glorious destiny (Pope Francis)
È un grande messaggio di speranza per ognuno noi; per te, che vivi giornate uguali, faticose e spesso difficili. Maria ti ricorda oggi che Dio chiama anche te a questo destino di gloria (Papa Francesco)
In the divine attitude justice is pervaded with mercy, whereas the human attitude is limited to justice. Jesus exhorts us to open ourselves with courage to the strength of forgiveness, because in life not everything can be resolved with justice. We know this (Pope Francis)
Nell’atteggiamento divino la giustizia è pervasa dalla misericordia, mentre l’atteggiamento umano si limita alla giustizia. Gesù ci esorta ad aprirci con coraggio alla forza del perdono, perché nella vita non tutto si risolve con la giustizia; lo sappiamo (Papa Francesco)
The Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy refers precisely to this Gospel passage to indicate one of the ways that Christ is present:  "He is present when the Church prays and sings, for he has promised "where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them' (Mt 18: 20)" [Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 7]
La Costituzione sulla Sacra Liturgia del Concilio Vaticano II si riferisce proprio a questo passo del Vangelo per indicare uno dei modi della presenza di Cristo: "Quando la Chiesa prega e canta i Salmi, è presente Lui che ha promesso: "Dove sono due o tre riuniti nel mio nome, io  sono in mezzo a loro" (Mt 18, 20)" [Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7]
This was well known to the primitive Christian community, which considered itself "alien" here below and called its populated nucleuses in the cities "parishes", which means, precisely, colonies of foreigners [in Greek, pároikoi] (cf. I Pt 2: 11). In this way, the first Christians expressed the most important characteristic of the Church, which is precisely the tension of living in this life in light of Heaven (Pope Benedict)
Era ben consapevole di ciò la primitiva comunità cristiana che si considerava quaggiù "forestiera" e chiamava i suoi nuclei residenti nelle città "parrocchie", che significa appunto colonie di stranieri [in greco pàroikoi] (cfr 1Pt 2, 11). In questo modo i primi cristiani esprimevano la caratteristica più importante della Chiesa, che è appunto la tensione verso il cielo (Papa Benedetto)
A few days before her deportation, the woman religious had dismissed the question about a possible rescue: “Do not do it! Why should I be spared? Is it not right that I should gain no advantage from my Baptism? If I cannot share the lot of my brothers and sisters, my life, in a certain sense, is destroyed” (Pope John Paul II)
Pochi giorni prima della sua deportazione la religiosa, a chi le offriva di fare qualcosa per salvarle la vita, aveva risposto: "Non lo fate! Perché io dovrei essere esclusa? La giustizia non sta forse nel fatto che io non tragga vantaggio dal mio battesimo? Se non posso condividere la sorte dei miei fratelli e sorelle, la mia vita è in un certo senso distrutta" (Papa Giovanni Paolo II)
By willingly accepting death, Jesus carries the cross of all human beings and becomes a source of salvation for the whole of humanity. St Cyril of Jerusalem commented: “The glory of the Cross led those who were blind through ignorance into light, loosed all who were held fast by sin and brought redemption to the whole world of mankind” (Catechesis Illuminandorum XIII, 1: de Christo crucifixo et sepulto: PG 33, 772 B) [Pope Benedict]

Due Fuochi due Vie - Vol. 1 Due Fuochi due Vie - Vol. 2 Due Fuochi due Vie - Vol. 3 Due Fuochi due Vie - Vol. 4 Due Fuochi due Vie - Vol. 5 Dialogo e Solstizio I fiammiferi di Maria

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