Most of what I know about the Assumption of Mary can be summed up in one simple and unexpected phrase: “Mary was human and needed help.” I first heard this phrase in the context while on retreat in Michigan a few years ago at a retreat center that was home to St. Joseph’s Catholic community for the deaf. Father Ken, director of the retreat center, spent the weekend going back and forth between cooking for my group--including fresh bread at every meal and a vegetarian chili so tasty I asked him for the recipe--and acting as a chaplain for the other group on campus, most of whom were deaf or hearing impaired. As some friends and I had free time one evening, he invited us to attend the vigil mass for the feast of the Assumption with the deaf community where he would sign the mass and his homily in ASL. As an act of hospitality to those of us who were hearing, he kindly spoke aloud as he signed a few sentences of his homily, explaining how the signs for “Ascension” and “Assumption” differ in one important way:
The Church celebrates the Ascension of Jesus 40 days after Easter, where in Matthew’s gospel the disciples witness Jesus rising to heaven and Jesus’s final earthly words are “I will be with you to the end of the age.” Therefore, the sign for Ascension features the left hand acting as a kind of platform representing earth, and the index and middle fingers of the right hand are directed towards the left palm to create a person-like figure and rise above it with a motion from left to right, representing Jesus rising from earth into heaven.
Image ( Ascension of Jesus- ASL )
However, for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the right-hand figure and the left palm remain connected and rise to heaven together.
Image ( Assumption of Mary- ASL )
Father Ken explained to us that because Jesus is divine, the son of God, He ascended bodily into heaven by virtue of his own power and divinity, represented by the right hand moving on its own for the sign word “ascension.” But because Mary was human and not divine, “she needed help.” Thus, it was not by Mary’s own power that she ascended to heaven as Jesus did, but rather that God willed for her body to be assumed into heaven after her death, represented by the supporting left palm which assists her journey to heaven.
Every year since my ASL mass experience, I ponder this simple but theologically rich truth on the feast of the Assumption. This year, considering the ways in which “Mary needed help,” not just in her Assumption but throughout her life, brings me a deep sense of peace. As someone who has turned to Mary in my own spiritual life for many years and uniquely cares for the Marianist charism, I frequently view Mary as a person of miraculous virtue, someone who courageously said yes to bring Christ into the world, a woman of wisdom. But I sometimes forget that Mary was also a humble girl from Galilee, entirely human like you and me. Like any other mom, she needed help from friends and family as she raised Jesus. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mary was close to other young moms in Galilee who she could turn to with questions and new motherhood anxieties, or if she ever asked Joseph to show Jesus around his carpentry shop so she could have a few hours to herself to pray or rest. Mary therefore needed and likely asked for help from her family, her community, and most definitely from God.
We honor Mary today on the Assumption not because of anything amazing she accomplished on her own, but because of her unwavering reliance on God. Full of grace and fully human, the Assumption invites us to consider how we can be a bit more like the humble girl from Galilee who needed God’s help. May we all honor Mary by humbly turning to God with our needs, big and small, today and always.