大象传媒

Good morning.聽 I have just come back from Bavaria, the largest and most independent-minded of all the German Laender.聽 In fact at times I wonder whether Bavaria actually really acknowledges itself as part of the Federal Republic at all.聽 It is the Freistaat Bayern.聽 It displays its distinctive blue-and-white flag at every opportunity.聽 It made its accession to the Weimar Republic dependent upon national acceptance of the Beer Purity Law ratified in Bavaria in the sixteenth century.聽 And every year, in the middle of August, in defiance of the Lutheran north but in common with the Catholic Christianity of southern Europe, it closes its banks and shops to celebrate the Festival of the Assumption:聽 Mary, the Mother of Jesus and therefore the Mother of God, taken into heaven by her divine Son.

Now is not the time to go into doctrine, but rather to think for a moment about the relational message of this.聽 It is surely right to honour motherhood.聽 Every human society has done so, at all times and in all places.聽 Yet聽 often now in our own day it is taken for granted, undermined, perceived as of less value than the workplace or the career.聽 We have been quick to decry it, to domesticate it, to speak disparagingly of the social value of faithful maternal care.聽 The Assumption of Mary teaches me that human relationships are paramount, that enduring faithfulness is rewarded, and that humility and simplicity are transformed into glory.聽 It teaches me also that holiness is proximity to God, and, even more, that nothing can separate us from the love of God.聽 And so I pray:聽 Lord, bless all whom you have called to the task of motherhood, and bless all our relationships, that in these things we may find love and fulfilment and joy.