Sermon at Parish Mass, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2017

Revelation 11:19-12:6,10

Galatians 4:4-7

Luke 1:46-55

I try to hide it but you may just have picked up that I’m a fan of all things Italian, and also of the Renaissance, the great movement of art and culture that had its birth in Italy but influenced the whole of Europe.

However, when it comes to the Renaissance artist Botticelli, I must admit my keenness wobbles a little. Yes, he has the human warmth and realism that the Renaissance introduced to art. But his paintings are always a bit, well, busy. The Birth of Venus, la Primavera, the Mystic Nativity (what’s that all about?). I tend to sympathise with Irene Coles, EF Benson’s fictional avant-garde artist, who described Botticelli’s Venus as an “anaemic flapper”. Picture her, standing in her seashell, wearing a 1920s cocktail dress, and you’ll get the idea.

However, there is one painting by Botticelli that I love, and it is his “Madonna of the Magnificat”, currently in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. It depicts the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child on her lap, and facing her is Saint Luke, shown as a young man, and of course various angels crammed in to fill up the available space – it is still a Botticelli.

In the scene as Botticelli depicts it Saint Luke has been writing his gospel, and he has just got to the bit we heard today, Mary’s great song of praise when she visited her cousin Elizabeth, the song known as the “Magnificat” from its first word in Latin.

At this point, Luke has stopped writing, and has handed the book and pen over to Mary. And she is shown writing her own words, the words of the Magnificat, into Luke’s Gospel, whilst the light from heaven shines on her head, and the Christ Child on her lap guides her hand as it writes.

In this painting Mary is shown as a Bible writer, an inspired author of sacred scripture. And not just any part of scripture. The Magnificat, along with the Psalms, is part of the daily prayer of the Church. From very ancient times it has been the culminating moment of evening prayer, sung or prayed every day. And what better way is there to round off each day, filled with God’s mercies, than in Mary’s hymn of triumphant thanksgiving?

So Mary’s inspired words are not simply part of an ancient text for us to study. They are part of the living prayer of the Church, giving thanks for the reality of God’s saving love, every day.

But it is not only in her words that Mary is a part of the living church. It is above all in her self, in her person, that she stands at the heart of the Church. Raised to the glory of heaven, she is not taken out of the Church, but has entered fully into what the Church really means, what the Church will be in eternity. The gathering up of all things in Christ, the life of the world to come, is promised in the fullness of time, but is shown to us already in Mary.

In her life she was completely conformed to Christ by grace, as the whole Church will be at the end of time.

Consider the exalted language with which scripture talks about the Church. In Ephesians 5, St Paul uses marriage as an illustration, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.” The book of Revelation speaks of the, “holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”.

In God’s providence, Mary is the disciple who shows to us already what the Church in its fullness will be.  In her, the Church is already presented to God “in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle… holy and without blemish”. In her the Church is already the “Bride adorned for her husband”.

The Church is Christ’s body, and everyone reborn in Christ is a member of that body. This is a great mystery. The Church is not a human club. It is the new creation into which all humanity, and all the universe, is called. To be in the Church is to participate in Christ, the God-Man. It is to be, in him, the visible sign of God’s kingdom in the world, just as Jesus was in his earthly life in Galilee. It is to suffer with him so that we might be glorified with him.

It is even to take part in his redeeming work. St Paul in Colossians 1 says “in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church”. Christ could have redeemed the universe all by himself, and indeed in principle he has done so. But he has chosen to include his Church in that work, so that all his members may participate by grace in what he is by nature. This truth is so immense that St Augustine speaks of Jesus and the Church together as forming “the whole Christ”.

We struggle towards this goal by grace. The Holy Spirit is turning us into Christ, but that is not for us sinners the work of a moment.

But in the Church God has willed that there should always be a disciple, a human being incorporated in Christ, in whom all these things are already fully true. That disciple is Mary. If Jesus is the head of the Church, then she is its heart, a heart without spot or blemish, both the sign and the foreshadowing of the Church in its perfection.

Mary stands at the heart of the Church, hands uplifted in prayer, turned always towards the Lord, praying with us and for us her song of praise, proclaiming to the end of time that the almighty has done great things, and holy is his name.

She is part of the Church as it stands in the world as the visible sign of God’s kingdom. She is part of the work and witness of every Christian disciple, the heart that beats the life-blood of grace around the body. No-one is an ambassador for Jesus Christ without Mary. The world received its redeemer through her, and it is through her still, with and in the whole Church, that he is made known.

Outward devotion to Mary expresses this truth, and reminds us of her participation in the redemption of the world. The angelus and the rosary, litanies and pilgrimages, are personal devotions, which will appeal differently to each. It is the liturgy that expresses what the Church is corporately. And Mary runs all through the liturgy.

She is named in the Eucharistic prayer at every Mass. She is there prominently at Christmas and Epiphany. She is there, too, at the wedding at Cana, and at the foot of the Cross, sharing in the sorrows of her Son. She is there with the disciples praying on the day of Pentecost. She is there in her feast days and memorials throughout the year, most especially today. She is there in her Magnificat, her song of praise that is on the lips of the Church as the sun goes down on each successive day.

We are all ambassadors of Jesus Christ, not alone, not as individuals, but as the Church. And therefore we are ambassadors with Mary, who stands at the heart of the Church as the first and greatest ambassador for her Son. To be disciples of Jesus means that we must take Mary with us. Or, rather, we must follow where she leads, so full of joy in the good news that nothing can stop her running with great haste to sing her song of praise that never ends.