The solemnity of the Asunción The feast of the Virgin Mary, in the middle of the month of August, fills our towns and cities with festivities. The whole of Spain comes to a standstill to celebrate, literally, the most popular of our festivities. Popular not only because of its great spread, but because its origin is to be found precisely in the people, in the desire of the simple people to proclaim that Mary was assumed into heaven in body and soul.
This dogma, which dates from 1950, is, in fact, a natural consequence of the immediately preceding Marian dogma (1854), the also defined by popular acclaim of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
This is explained by Pope Pius XII in the apostolic constitution "Munificentissimus Deus"recalling that, "when it was solemnly defined that the Virgin Mother of God, Mary, was immune from the hereditary stain of her conception (Immaculate), the faithful were filled with a more lively hope that as soon as possible the dogma of the bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven would be defined by the supreme magisterium of the Church".
The text goes on to say that "in this pious competition, the faithful were admirably united with their pastors, who, in truly impressive numbers, addressed similar petitions to this chair of St. Peter".
And it is that the synodalityThe neologism that has become fashionable on the occasion of the process convoked by Francis for the period 2021-2023, and which designates the path that we travel together, faithful and pastors, as the People of God under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is not something new in the Church, but belongs to her most intimate essence since her beginnings, "it is a constitutive dimension", the Pope points out.
Mary herself, the very Mother of God, also lived synodality. In the book of Acts, which chronicles the birth of the first Christian communities, we see her attentive to the preaching of the apostles, together with the other disciples of Jesus, persevering "with one accord in prayer. The girl from Nazareth, chosen by God to be his most perfect creature, walks as one with the rest of the holy people in following her Son.
Throughout history, too, there have been many occasions in which this journey together of the faithful and their pastors has safeguarded the deposit of faith and the life of the Church.
Today there are many voices, especially outside the Christian community, although sadly also within, that try to break this spirit, trying to sell an image of division within the ecclesial family.
They promote a vision of the Church in which the hierarchy is on one side while the common believers are on the other. Or they focus on the Pope's most controversial decisions or statements with the sole objective of presenting a Church in disunity, and therefore weaker. But this is a false image.
Of course, there is a disparity of opinions and criteria among the faithful and bishops, among bishops among themselves, among the faithful and bishops and the pope, and of course within each Christian community.
There will be decisions of the hierarchy that are accepted better and worse, and there will be pastors who listen more and who listen less to their faithful, but there is a mystery, a glue, the Holy Spirit, that allows to unite what in appearance may seem disunited, like the dry and scattered bones that came together and came to life before the prophet Ezekiel.
Faced with the experts in Vatican intrigues, faced with those who believe themselves to be the owners of the absolute truth and seek to impose it on others, faced with those who slander for gain, the Holy People of God continues to walk together, aware of its limitations and failures, seeking the truth of our faith all together, participating, contributing, "persevering in prayer with one accord" and always under the guidance of the shepherds to whom the Lord entrusted his flock, not to profit, but to lay down their lives for him.
Mary, woman of the people, woman of the people, always attentive to the Spirit, the one who is more than the apostles, but who sits and listens like a disciple, can help us on this her feast to put aside our divisions and to feel, like her, members of the Church.
She precedes us in heaven, and invites us to accompany her. We will achieve this to the extent that we continue to feel part of her people, the one and only Holy People of God.
Journalist. Graduate in Communication Sciences and Bachelor in Religious Sciences. He works in the Diocesan Delegation of Media in Malaga. His numerous "threads" on Twitter about faith and daily life have a great popularity.
