As we prepare for our Assumptiontide celebrations at St Mary’s Church in Butetown on August 13th, Fr Dean Atkins grapples with a Google Map journey and reflects on the travels of Mary, and her onward journey to Heaven where we are called to follow.
Google maps tells me that the distance from Nazareth to Ain Karem, the place where Elizabeth lived in the hill country of Judah, is 150.9 km.
By car, it would take me 1 hour and 35 minutes. Public transport: 3 hours and 2 minutes, but if I was to walk , it would take me 31 hours. Making the rather over exaggerated assumption that I would be able to walk for 8 hours a day, it would take me four days to walk there. The truth is that it would probably take me a little longer!
Assuming that the young teenage Mary was a little fitter than someone who has seen better days perhaps she experienced four or five or even six days of walking and wondering, aware of the growing presence of Jesus within her.
Journeying is something she would become particularly familiar with in the months and years to come.
She makes the difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, heavily pregnant. Some time later, she journeys from Bethlehem to Jerusalem with a new born baby. There is the escape into Egypt, seeking safety from danger, seeking asylum. Years later, she makes the familiar journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem with her twelve year old son, wise beyond his years, causing her to wonder.
As she watches her child grow into a man,
and begin his public ministry, she continues her journeys with Jesus. She is always at a distance, but never far away, and she is there when her son is torn apart by pain and suffering on that Via Dolorosa journey to that skull shaped hill.
Yes, Mary is a well-travelled woman.
Now, at the end of her journey through life, as she bids goodbye to her earthly life, her journey continues still. She, like each of us, is a pilgrim whose destination is heaven. She, like us, will never really be at home in this world, as St Paul reminds us. She – whose body has been a home to the Lord – is assumed to heaven, body and soul.
She was the first to receive Jesus. And now she is the first to share his glory.
At our Assumptiontide festival on August 13th, as we make our torchlight procession with the image of Mary in our midst, we will be reminded that, like Mary, we are a pilgrim people.
We will gaze above us to the fireworks in the sky, and be reminded of our destiny which is heaven.
Why would we not follow Mary’s example? Why would we not take encouragement from her? Why would we not humbly lay a claim to her prayers? Why would we, who long to be close to Jesus, not look to her to show us what intimacy with him actually means?
And so when we hail her as blessed, we take angelic words to our lips and to our hearts. Yes, Mary is blessed. So the angel has said.
To walk with her in our midst is a natural thing to do. Like her, may we be alert to the growing presence of Jesus within us, and the destination of our journey, as citizens of heaven.
Whilst the detail and the uniqueness of Mary’s life and vocation remains, the pattern of her discipleship is one in which we share.
To long for Jesus.
To accept Jesus.
To cling to Jesus and follow his every move.
To journey with Jesus.
To live for ever with Jesus.
Enter the Mystery 
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