Homily

"He has lifted up the lowly," sings Mary, who praises the Lord, encouraged by Elizabeth’s affectionate welcome. How little we help those who are near to us! How little we sustain those who, like Mary, face the uncertainty, the risk and the fear of not conforming themselves to the logic of this world because they choose the blessing of believing that, "there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." This is Mary’s true humility: trusting not in her own strength, pride and capabilities in what happens, in the affirmation of her own hands or tongue, but rather in the Word of God. She believes that she will not be disappointed. She trusts God despite her lowliness, overcoming herself, welcoming an extraordinary promise for a life humanly insignificant. First of all, Mary welcomes the Word. The believer is the one who listens, who gives room, who takes seriously, who does not remain prisoner of the "if" and "but," the one who overcomes one's perplexity, resistance, and fear because he or she listens and trusts.
"He has lifted up the lowly." Mary’s joy allows her to sing all the wonders of God’s love. True joy is communicated to all. Today, with Mary, we celebrate the feast of the humble, an impossible feast in the logic of the world, which lifts exalts the powerful, celebrates, reveres, cheats and envies the rich and those who trust in the fruit of their hands; the world which leaves alone the hungry, which abandons them to the anguishing search for bread and for what it is needed to live. How much the world needs to be lifted from pettiness, grossness, weakness and fear! How much we need to see a different future in order to learn how to love the concrete life of men and women and believe the strength of love! Today we see Mary coming to the mountain of God; she is "clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (Rev 12:1), and entering heaven. She was the first who took Jesus in her arms when he was still a child; now she is the first to be taken in the Son’s arms and to be assumed into heaven. Because she welcomed the Gospel, a humble girl from a tiny village lost on the edges of the empire has become the first citizen of heaven, assumed by God and placed beside the throne of the Son. Truly, the Lord has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and raised up the lowly.
The mystery we are celebrating today is great indeed. It opens us to our future: we too will stand next to the Lord in body. One could say that the full victory of the resurrection begins with today’s feast: the new heavens and the new earth announced by Revelation begin today. The celestial Jerusalem is starting to be inhabited and beginning its life of peace, justice, and love. Mary’s Magnificat can rightly become our song, the song of the whole of humanity as it sees the Lord bend down and touch all men and women, humble creatures that they are, and take them with him into heaven to become close to him.
Today we hear the particularly festive Magnificat sung by all those nameless women whom no one remembers, those poor women crushed by the weight of life and by the tragedy of violence who finally feel themselves embraced by strong and affectionate hands that lift them up and lead them into heaven. Yes, today is also the feast of God’s assumption of poor women. Yes, it is the assumption of poor women by God. It is the assumption of the slaves, the women of the south of the world who are forced to go through life doubled over the ground; it is the assumption of the girls forced to work in inhumane conditions and exposed to an early death; it is the assumption of the women forced to succumb in body and spirit to the blind violence of men; it is the assumption of the women who work in secret with no one to remember them. Today the Lord has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the humble and unknown women. The Lord has sent the rich and powerful away empty-handed and has filled the women, who hunger for bread, love, friendship and tenderness, with good things.
Today’s celebration opens us to our future: we too will stand next to the Lord in body. Mary’s Magnificat becomes our thanksgiving for such a great love, for the protection full of love of the one who says that even the hairs on our head are counted. May the Lord teach us to trust in him, to stay with him and to believe like Mary that everything happens according to His word in order to enjoy His endless love. "Mother you are the door of heaven; without you God would not have become man and the earth would have never become the land of God and humanity, His living temple; and we could have never ascend to participate in His divinity, for which even the last of human beings becomes a prince of divine lineage."