Remembering the Assumption of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

CATHOLICS all over the world celebrate a feast day, on August 15 each year, in honor of one of the greatest mysteries of the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ: Her bodily assumption into heaven. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches it:

The Most Blessed Virgin Mary, when the course of her earthly life was completed, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven, where she already shares in the glory of her Son’s Resurrection, anticipating the resurrection of all members of His Body (974).

It says in the early apostolic constitution of Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, where he defined the dogma of the Assumption, that Mary, by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.

Assumption means taking up of a person into heaven. According to Fr. William G. Most, in the excerpt and adapted from Theology 523: Our Lady in Doctrine and Devotion, there had been a problem of how the Pope could define the Assumption. There seemed to be nothing in Scripture on it, and what things there were in the Tradition of the Fathers seemed to come not from an apostolic origin, but from some apocryphal stories that circulated chiefly beginning in the fourth century.

He further said that a Pope is not required to specify precisely where in the sources of revelation he finds a given doctrine. Yet, those documents often do review various things that at least in a way seem to support the teaching. We see an example of this in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus in which Pius IX defined the Immaculate Conception. One thought that was clearly in the mind of Pius XII was the principle of consortium–that Mary was “always sharing His [Christ’s] lot” (AAS 42. 768).

Pope Pius XII later on carefully refrained from saying in his own words at any point that she [Mary] died. Some, even a few of the Fathers, had denied that she ever died, basing this on the fact that death was the result of original sin, which she lacked. However, because as Pius XII also said, she was “always sharing His lot,” for this reason, likeness to Him, it seems much more probable that she did die.

The Gospel message is not only that Jesus Himself rose again in a glorified body and soul, but that also, if our hearts live in union with His, we, too, shall rise to a glorified life, body and soul, just like His own.

According to Robert Stackpole, STD, the director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy, this is precisely what the Assumption of Mary proclaims: “Christ is Risen — and is now bringing all faithful hearts with Him to glory!” For the sign of this hope to all the Church is that the heart that was closest to His own loving Heart, has already been raised to glory before us.

Assumpta est Maria in coeli, gaudete angeli!