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Two Feasts anticipate the victory of Christ on the Last Day: the Ascension and the Assumption. But it is the Feast of the Assumption that reiterates what victory means: the New Creation, the recapitulation of all the universe in its Head. Mary is the first sign of that victory.
If the Ascension must be followed by the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the beginning of the age of the Church, the Assumption shows what God has destined the Church to accomplish: to subject all things to Christ that he may subject all things now restored to the Father.
As with all Marian dogmas, the point is not to introduce a new level between us and Divinity, as if Mary is there to make us realize how far we are from her, and then from God. No, each Marian dogma is a sign of what we too are destined to become: holy, as God is holy.
God has destined us to be immaculate, to bear and bring forth the Word by our flesh, to mediate and share in the Redemption, to dedicate ourselves virginally (wholly, integrally) to God's will, and to receive the full promise of God to Israel: to make all things new.
The Assumption therefore is our Eschatological Feast: today we celebrate the destiny of heaven, which is to say, that God will not rest until all has made new. All that we've lost, restored; all that has been broken, repaired; all that has been enslaved, redeemed.
Mary is Daughter Zion, the archetype of the Church, what we must become, Israel in its perfection, the Temple in which God dwells: not as in an earthly house, but in us so intimately that we will be full of grace! Mary's excellence therefore is preeminent, but not exclusive!
The Feast of the Assumption is above all the Church's celebration of hope. God's victory will be total and complete. There is no sadness here, because nothing is lost, all is made new, for those who are in Christ. Reminded now of this victory, we press on toward its fulfillment!
