When you walked into the church today, many of you thought you were entering a different church: the statue of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton prominently displayed in the nave, the pictures of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Divine Mercy hanging on the back wall.

The pedestal now allows us to better appreciate the statue of our patroness Saint. In two weeks, we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of her birth. I hope that this relocation and elevation of the statue and especially the relic of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in the framework of this celebration will be a source of blessing for the parish and that it will bring us closer to Our Lord through her.

The solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is an appropriate occasion to reflect on one of the articles of the Creed that we profess, "the resurrection of the flesh." The Church teaches us that it is a mandatory belief of our faith that the Blessed Virgin Mary, after her earthly life, was taken body and soul to Heaven.

Today I want to explore one consideration about this belief. We human beings are connected to our mothers in an incredible way. The bodies of children are in some way an extension of the bodies of their mothers. If the fundamental dogma of our religion is that our Lord rose in a glorious body and ascended to heaven, consequently the body of his most holy mother would also have this same end.

Someone may object: is it not the resurrection of the dead that the Lord promises to all his disciples? The answer is yes, but at the end of time. The case of his most holy mother was exceptional. She did not need to wait until the end of time.

Our Lord could do this with his beloved Mother. And the Church believes that he did. The Church rejoices that the Lord has taken his beloved mother in body and soul to heaven. The Church rejoices because this news fills her with hope. The reality of the resurrection that the Lord promises to his disciples has already begun to be fulfilled.

The Blessed Virgin has become the model of our hope and the most excellent advocate in heaven. She prays to her beloved Son for all her spiritual children so that one day we too may experience the resurrection of the flesh.

St. Paul taught the Corinthians that, “That which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality” (1 Corinthians 15: 54). This is our hope. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary fills us with this hope.