Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,       
In union with the whole Church, we celebrate the Assumption of Our Lady, body and soul, into the glory of heaven.  Mary’s Assumption shows us our own destiny as God’s adoptive children and members of the body of Christ.  Like Mary our Mother, we are called to share fully in the Lord’s victory over sin and death, and to reign with him in his eternal Kingdom. 
       
The “great sign” presented in today’s first reading – a woman clothed in the sun and crowned by stars (cf. Rev 12:1) – invites us to contemplate Mary enthroned in glory beside her divine Son.  It also invites us to acknowledge the future which even now the Risen Lord is opening before us.  Koreans traditionally celebrate this feast in the light of their historical experience, seeing the loving intercession of Our Lady at work in the history of the nation and the lives of its people.
       
In today’s second reading, we heard Saint Paul tell us that Christ is the new Adam, whose obedience to the Father’s will has overturned the reign of sin and bondage and inaugurated the reign of life and freedom (cf. 1 Cor 15:24-25).  True freedom is found in our loving embrace of the Father’s will.  From Mary, full of grace, we learn that Christian freedom is more than liberation from sin.  It is freedom for a new, spiritual way of seeing earthly realities.  It is the freedom to love God and our brothers and sisters with a pure heart, and to live a life of joyful hope for the coming of Christ’s Kingdom.

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