AUGUST 15, 2026 FATHER PETER TURRONE
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
My brothers and sisters, today we celebrate the great solemnity of the Assumption of the Mother of God into heaven.
So, the Church has always believed that Mary has a very special role. She’s the mother of the Redeemer, the Theotokos. She is the icon of what it means to be a Christian. She’s the perfect Christian, one who’s completely filled with God and who constantly sought the will of God in her own life.
She was conceived without sin. But throughout her entire life, which was also filled with suffering, she always kept her faith in God, her complete trust in him. She loved him above all things throughout her entire life.
And at the end of her earthly life, as the Church teaches, she was taken up, body and soul, into heaven. So, Mary is taken up, body and soul, into heaven at the end of her earthly life.
So, this great Assumption. It was not through her own power. When Christ ascends, it’s through his own power that he rises from the dead, and then it’s through his own power that he ascends, and bodily, he goes back to the Father.
With Mary and the Assumption, it is God himself who lifts up Mary, and he assumes her into heaven and her rightful place, where she is there as the Queen of Heaven, interceding before God, before his Son, before the Father and the Holy Spirit, on behalf of all of the Church, on behalf of all of humanity.
So, Mary’s role, her intercessory role, continues. And there’s the final words of today’s Gospel I find to be quite fascinating.
We know that Mary, again, she loves God above all things. Her life was a praise of the glory of God. How can we get to heaven with Mary? How can we be there with her? She’s there. She precedes us, and she’s interceding for us.
So, what can we learn from her life, her earthly life, so that one day, we too can be with God in the resurrection?
Well, the final lines of today’s Gospel are very simple, but they’re very profound. It says, “And Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months, then returned to her home.”
Three months. But what happened during those three months?
See, when Mary was chosen by God to be his mother, she did not mount an earthly throne, but she was moved by the Holy Spirit to go and visit Elizabeth, her cousin, who was found pregnant in old age. So, this was a great grace that she had received.
So, when Mary arrives there, you can see the operating of the Holy Spirit in John the Baptist, already in the womb of Elizabeth. You can hear this beautiful exchange. The prayers that we say every day in the rosary, part of them are taken directly from Scripture.
We see this with the encounter again, and then Mary, she’s overwhelmed with the grace of God, right? She begins to proclaim the goodness of God. She says, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” She doesn’t magnify herself; she magnifies God.
We can see already here by magnifying God in our lives, praising God, that is a necessary prerequisite in order to be taken into heaven one day.
So, do we live our lives praising God regardless of the circumstances that we find ourselves in? So, that’s the first question for us on which we should meditate.
Do I seek God above everything, or do I seek myself? In Mary’s case, we know that it was always God.
She says very clearly, she knows who she is before God. She knows that God has given her this gift. So, he’s given her this great gift that we will remember her for every generation, which is what we’re doing right now, what the Church will always do.
She speaks of the mercy of God, and she also speaks of humility. She realizes that everything is gift. In her humility, she receives everything, and she offers everything back to God. So, we’re called to do the same thing.
Then the last thing, which is very important, is that for those three months that the Virgin Mary is there, she served. The Mother of God serves.
She went to fetch the water. She would cook. She would clean. She did the laundry. She conversed with Elizabeth. She was there to support her throughout those three months.
Very simple things, but it was in the loving fidelity to God as expressed in her care for her neighbour, right? Which already helped her to experience, which brought heaven on earth and prepared her for her ongoing role interceding for all of us in heaven.
So, my brothers and sisters, God wants us with him in heaven when we leave this earth. At the end of time, he wants all of us in the resurrection to receive a glorified body and soul.
The best way to do that is to be faithful in our daily lives of glorifying God in all things, embracing suffering, embrace it knowing that we’re united to Christ, and serving our brothers and sisters.
It’s not complicated, but it’s not easy without the grace of God, either, and we ask the Most Blessed Virgin Mary to help us along the way.
