We Cannot Have What We Do Not See

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

There is so much joy in the Gospel—physical, visceral, tangible joy. An expectant mother goes in haste to rejoice with her cousin. An infant leaps for joy in the womb. Two women exalt, singing hymns of praise.

What is the cause of their joy, Mary and Elizabeth? From where does their joy come?

St. Thomas says that the cause of joy is to be with the one you love, and that the greatest love that we can possess in our lives is a love for God. He says we can love God and be with the one we love.

St. Augustine says that the happy life is to rejoice to God, in God, for God.

Mary and Elizabeth rejoice because Mary and Elizabeth have God—they possess God, are with God, live lives that are bound up with God. Mary and Elizabeth love God and are with the one they love. There is the cause of their joy.

We live in a world today that lacks joy. The default condition of our humanity—our basic dispositions, attitudes, ways of thinking and living in relationship with one another—more and more seems to consist of anxiety, suspicion, doubt, anger, judgment, despair. Maybe the reason we want to give for the lack of joy in the world is that far too many people do not have God, possess God, too many people live away from God and do not live lives that are bound up with God. Those facts are true enough. The world is a pretty godless place sometimes. Why would there be joy in that kind of world?

The problem, at least as far as I see it, is that more and more these days even the faithful lack joy. The people who live lives bound up with God, who have God, possess God, even the faithful almost by default reveal a humanity afflicted by anxiety, suspicion, doubt, anger, judgment, and despair. We lack the joy of the Gospel too often in our lives. You and me. We lack the joy of the Gospel.

Why do we lack joy if we have God in our lives? Maybe because we struggle to have God, possess God, the way that Mary and Elizabeth have God in their lives, possess God in their lives.

St. Gregory of Nyssa says that to see is to have. He says that we can see God in our lives, and that because we can see God, we can possess everything that is good. He says that:

Whoever ‘sees God’ receives, in this act of seeing, possession of everything that is good: incorruptible life without end, blessedness that cannot fail, a kingdom without end, happiness without limit, true light, the true voice of the Spirit, glory never before reached, perpetual rejoicing, and all else that is good.

Physical, visceral, tangible joy. The kind of joy that Mary and Elizabeth experience because these two women see God.

I think that is what happens in the town of Judah. These two women see God, which is to say, these two women see what God is doing; they see God at work. Have you listened to the words of the Magnificat, to Mary’s hymn of praise? Mary says that her spirit rejoices in God because of the saving action of God in history—in her personal history, in the history of Israel, in the history of the world. Mary sees God: a God who bestows mercy, shows the strength of his arm, scatters the proud, casts down the mighty from their thrones, feeds the hungry, sends the rich away empty, a God who lifts up the lowly. Mary sees in the Christ-child who she bears in her womb the fulfillment of God’s promises.

Mary sees what God is doing, she sees God at work, she catches a glimpse of the divine economy. And her spirit rejoices. How could Mary and Elizabeth have done anything other than rejoice at the sight of God’s saving work in history? To see is to have, and to see God is to have God, possess God, live a life that is bound up with God.

What do you see? How is your vision?

When you look out at the world, do you see only the brokenness and the evil or do you behold a created order into which Christ is born for the purposes of salvation and redemption?

When you look at the Church, do you see only the corruption and the scandal or do you see the love of God pouring itself out through sacraments, into the very body of Christ, for the sanctification of the world?

When you look out at this City, do you see only the violence and addiction and poverty, or do you see the kind of love at work that leads young men and women to leave their homes and travel to a foreign place so that the most forgotten of society might know Christ?

When you look at yourself, do you see only what is missing, what you lack, the reality of your sin, or do you see a person made in the image and likeness of God, someone who Christ loves to the point of death, a person granted the divine privilege of seeing God, possessing God, living a life bound up with God?

When you look at the Cross, do you see only the hideousness of a man scourged and crucified, or do you see the identity of a God who is love revealed to you in a humble act of sacrifice?

To see is to have, to see God is to possess God, and to possess God is to experience the joy of the Gospel—a joy that is physical, visceral, tangible.

The reality of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is, for me, the confirmation that this world is made for God and so are we. We are made for God. The world is good. Life is good. There is so much cause for joy. But we cannot have what we do not see.

Homily preached on August 15th, 2023 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary