Revelation 11.9 – 12.6,10   Ps 45.10-end   Galatians 4.4-7   Luke 1.46-55
‘All generations shall call me blessèd’ – Luke 1.48

EVEN on a great feast day, we are not at present allowed to sing, so we are missing the lovely hymns of Mary, which we should be enjoying today. But I have printed one of them on the news-sheet, because it covers the whole story of Mary, which we are celebrating. (Not, of course, that it could do it justice in four short verses – nor in many, many more, for that matter).
‘Sing,’ verse 1 says, (it’s a pity we can’t), but, if we could – ‘Sing we of the joys of Mary’, who ‘received the angel’s word, … [then] bore in love the infant Lord’.
Verse 2 points us to ‘ … Mary’s sorrows, of the sword that pierced her through’ – as Simeon had prophesied it would, all  those years ago, when she had brought her infant Son to the Temple, to present him to God. The meaning of those puzzling, alarming words became horrifyingly clear to Mary, ‘when beneath the cross of Jesus she his weight of suffering knew’. (How could she understand that he was willingly, wonderfully, paying ‘the price of our redemption’?).
In verse 3, we turn again to the joys of Mary, when ’she saw the risen Lord’, her Son, and, with the apostles, knew that his promise to be with them always was fulfilled in the coming of the Holy Spirit.
The final verse sings of ‘the chiefest joy of Mary when on earth her work was done, and the Lord of all creation brought her to his heavenly home’. That joyous entrance into heaven – joyous, surely,  for both Mother and Son – is commonly called the Assumption, the title generally given to today’s feast.

This hymn follows closely the pattern of the Rosary – a devotion used mainly by Roman Catholics, though Christians of other denominations, especially Anglicans, also use it (and, indeed, one of the best books I know about the Rosary was written by a Methodist).
A rosary consists of a string of beads attached to a crucifix. The user’s fingers move from one to another, and on each bead, as well as on the crucifix, a prayer is said. The main part of the rosary is a ring of five groups of ten small beads, each group preceded by a larger bead. The Lord’s Prayer is said on the large bead and the ‘Hail, Mary’ on each of the small beads.
While the prayer is recited, the user contemplates one of what are called ‘mysteries’ (which correspond to the verses of the hymn we’ve just been thinking about). On different days of the week, these will be either the Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries or the Glorious Mysteries. The Joyful Mysteries concern  the Incarnation: Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, our Lord’s birth, his presentation in the Temple, and his visit to the Temple, aged 12. The Sorrowful Mysteries recall Christ’s Passion: the agony in the garden, his scourging, crowning with thorns, carrying the cross, and crucifixion. The Glorious Mysteries are the resurrection, the ascension, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and Mary’s assumption and crowning as Queen of heaven.

It may seem strange to be saying a prayer to Mary while focussing on Christ’s life on earth and beyond.  But not really. The glory of Mary is that her life was in perfect tune with that of her Son. Her response to the angel, ‘Let it be as you have said’, set in motion Christ’s work here, the work of our salvation.
We call her the ‘Blessèd Virgin Mary’, echoing our patron saint’s mother, Elizabeth: ‘Blessèd are you among women,’ she cried when Mary visited her. And in what does her blessedness consist? It is more than having been chosen to be the mother of God’s Son, unspeakably wonderful though that is. But when a woman called out to Jesus, ‘Blessèd is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!’, Jesus replied, ‘Blessèd rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’ (Luke 11.27,28). That is what Mary did – heard and obeyed – and that is what makes her most truly blessèd.
And Jesus was saying to that woman in the crowd, and through her to us, ‘And that could be, should be, every one of you. You hear the word of God, so listen to it, really hear it, obey it, and you will be truly blessèd.’
What that means in practice will be different for each one of us. lt is for us to find out, by listening, as Mary did, so that we live our life more truly in tune with that of Christ. This feast challenges us to that anew.
So, ‘Blessèd are you … ‘, we say to Mary today. To live our lives in tune with his, as she did, would be to find our blessedness, our true happiness. But we know how far we are from that, so we add, ‘Pray for us sinners … now, and always.’ Amen.