Sermon for Assumption 2025: A Bed of Roses

Assumption 2025: A Bed of Roses

Luke 1:39-55

The Reverend Paul D. Allick, the Church of the Advent, August 15, 2025

Given what I understand from Scripture, Tradition, and

personal experience, I believe that God sends us

messengers. I do not hear many people in the Episcopal

Church talk about this, but that does not mean it is not

happening. It could mean that sharing unexplainable spiritual

experiences with others makes us feel intellectually

vulnerable.

At the same time, we do not want to over-react to such

experiences. These are holy moments. They should be held

close.

St. Mary is one of my messengers. She has come in

dreams, nudges, and whispers. This makes sense given that

I regularly ask her to pray for me.

In the spring of 2008, she made herself distinctly known to

me. (And for those who remember this story from a few

years ago, I beg forgiveness, but it felt important to tell it

again.)

I was in the midst of a fretful discernment. I was coming to

the end of an interim assignment, and I had no clue what

would come next. How would we pay the mortgage?

It was a Friday. My day off. I spent the morning in prayer. I

said Morning Prayer and listened for the Holy Spirit. I

begged God to show me something. I prayed the Rosary

contemplating the Sorrowful Mysteries while reflecting on my

own predicament.

Then I went to sit on the porch. I noticed that overnight the

rose bush had sprouted dozens of buds. A faint whisper, a

nudging of the heart came. It felt like Mary. She said, “Roses

are going to start coming out everywhere.”

Just then the phone rang. I noted the area code. A Church

call on my day off. A member of the parish where I was

serving called to tell me that the parish eight blocks from my

house would soon be looking for a priest. She thought I

would be a good fit with them.

“Roses are going to start coming out everywhere.”

I knew the current priest and was interested in the

congregation. I knew that they were a place of prayer with a

long history of renewal ministries. I knew that they had been

focused on fortifying their lay ministries. I was interested.

“Roses are going to start coming out everywhere.”

And boy did they! I was soon reminded that roses are full of

thorns.

Getting to that parish would involve four months of

institutional twists and turns involving pronounced

miscommunications. In the meantime, I learned that one of

my beloved priest mentors had died, I was diagnosed with

type-2 diabetes, my estranged brother died, a very close

aunt died, and I was unemployed for two months.

I arrived at my new parish quite humbled meaning I was

quite grounded. I arrived through a wall of grief and struggle.

I arrived realizing that this is the way it often goes on the

Gospel path.

It seems the popular image of St. May is saint with soft

features and a gentle presence. But think of what she

endured. She suffered the humiliation of telling Joseph she

was pregnant before their marriage. She gave birth under

very trying circumstances. She stood by as her son angered

people in power and embarrassed his family. She watched

her son die on a cross. Blessed among women, indeed!

God looks for messengers who understand that roses come

with thorns.

Whenever I pray the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary and

get to the Assumption, my pray is that I might have a good

death in the way that Mary did. I want to die at peace, fully

trusting in God’s promises no matter how many thorns have

pierced me along the way. I want to be taken to God basking

in faith, hope, and love.

Mary came through many “thorns” and, yet, stayed close to

God. Because of this God-given grace she was the only

disciple to participate in the Lord’s conception, nativity,

mission, crucifixion, and resurrection. And she was there in

the upper room at the founding of Church.

Through grace, Mary knew how to wait on God. She trusted

that, in the end, God always lifts up the lowly.

Mary died so at peace with God, with others and herself that,

we believe, she tasted not death.

I hope to come within 100 miles of that kind of peace. I pray

that you will experience the same as you follow Jesus. Let

us pray for each other. Let us keep asking Mary and all the

Saints to pray for us, now and at the hour of our death.