Homily given on 16th August 2026 at Westminster Cathedral

Dear brothers and sisters,
Welcome to this celebration on this great feast of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady into Heaven.

“He Who is might has done great things for me and holy is His name.” Mary is assumed into heaven, the one who is the mother of the Saviour shares – at the moment of her death – in the consequences of her Son’s resurrection.

The first reading of today’s Mass provides us with the image of the “woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” This is, surely, an image our Lady, for the passage continues to describe the vision of the battle between Satan and her Son – the Saviour of the world. This image of our Lady, crowned and in glory, is indicative of today’s feast.

The dogma of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady was declared only 1950 – by Pope Pius XII, during the Holy Year. We might be forgiven for thinking that this seems rather recent – yet, as Pope Pius highlights in the Apostolic Constitution that accompanied the declaration, this has been the constant teaching of the Church since the earliest times.

All that we believe about Our Blessed Mother, Mary, points us to her Son. Just has her immaculate conception prepared her to be the mother of the Saviour, so she was to share, immediately at the end of her earthly life, in the benefits that her Son has won for us through his Resurrection – for is would not have been right for the mother of God to “know” as St. Germanus expressed it “dissolution into dust. She is taken straight to heaven, as befits her status as the Mother of Christ.”

So, in celebrating this beautiful feast, we celebrate our own hope – for we are called, through the death and resurrection of Christ to come to the wonder of heaven. While we shall not be assumed into heaven, Mary shows us that our destiny is our true home in heaven. In the meantime, we are pilgrims – the Pilgrim People of God – given by Christ the mission to proclaim His life – and the destiny to which all people are called: the eternal praise of God in the glory of heaven. This demands of us a particular way of life, growing from our prayer and he celebration of the eucharist, that makes of us, in the imitation of Our Blessed Mother, bearers of God’s love to the world.

Today’s feast is not simply the celebration of an historical reality in the person of Mary, called home by her Son. Is not this a feast for our time, for our society, for the world in which we live? Sure this is so, since this feast calls us all to focus on the reality of our lives – lives that are not simply for this moment, but for eternity in the love of the Father.

This reality, to which Mary calls us, transforms our very existence. Humanity does not exist simply for the appetites and gratifications of the moment, the self-centred and short-lived pleasures to which so much of our present society calls us. Our lives should not be about conflict and the scars this brings at so many level of our lives and, beyond, on the world stage marked by the desire for power that brings suffering and death to so many thousands.

Rather, Mary, assumed into heaven, teaches us that through a complete openness to the will of God, life itself is life-giving and brings us to the wonder of the life and love of the Kingdom.

May our every moment be informed by Mary’s journey – life given completely to the call of Her Son. It is through life lived in this way that we can be bold to say, even of ourselves: “He who is mighty has great things for me and holy is His name.”