Jacqueline Kelly –
For hundreds of years, Catholics observed the two chief feasts of Mary, her Immaculate Conception [December 8] and her Assumption [August 15]. Among all the saints the most Holy Virgin Mary stands in the first place. God raised Mary to a dignity above that of all the angels and saints and filled her soul with grace. She is the mother of His Son and the Holiest of all women. She is also our mother and continually prays to God for us. That is why we honour Mary, in an altogether special way. It was her privilege to give her help to God at the incarnation of His Son. As Jesus was offering Himself for us on the Cross, Mary stood near Him and took part in His sacrifice.
Mary, the new Eve, is Mother of all who have received new life in Christ. Mary is portrayed standing on the moon, her head crowned with stars and her foot crushing the serpent’s head. The “woman” represents the Church who has been kept safe from the evil one by God because of her eternal “yes”.
Because Mary was so closely bound up with her Son in His passion and death, she was to be like Him also in His Heavenly Glory. Her body was preserved from corruption because she remained always free from sin. At the end of her life on earth, Mary was glorified by being taken up body and soul into heaven. This is called the “Assumption”.
Mary’s Assumption into heaven was not through her own power, but she was lifted up by the Power of God. Through the Assumption, she is redeemed by God, that is her body and soul, share in the glory of God.
In ancient liturgy this feast was called the Dormition [Falling Asleep] or Repose. When this feast, which originated in the Byzantine Empire – probably in the 5th century – came into the Western Church, the term Dormition was replaced by “Assumption”. Roman Catholics believed that it was right that the body of one who was entirely free from sin should not be left to decay in the earth.
The earliest known literary reference to the Assumption is found in the Greek work. The tradition of the Assumption was already proclaimed as early as in the year 749 by Saint John Damascene. “Mary conceived without detriment to her virginal modesty, brought forth her Son without pain, passed hence without decay, according to the word of the angel, or rather God speaking by the angel, that she might be shown to be full, not half-full, of grace,” wrote Pope Alexander III [1159-1181].
There are many beliefs about the burial of Mary. There are people who believe that Mary’s tomb is in the Kidron valley, some say that she is buried at Ephesus while others say that she was buried at Gethsemene. There is a large cave near the Garden of Gethsemene. According to tradition, Mary, who died on Mount Zion, was buried here. It is now a Greek Orthodox Chapel. There are numerous steps leading down into this cave chapel. An empty tomb is kept in the chapel recalling the burial of Mary here and her Assumption into heaven.
Saint Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon [451], made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of Saint Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven, except for her grave clothes. In a later tradition, Mary drops her girdle down to the Apostle from heaven as testament to the event. This incident is depicted in many later paintings of the Assumption.
Today, the belief in the Corporeal Assumption of Mary is universal in the East and in the West; according to Benedict XIV [De Festis B.V.M., 1, viii, 18], to deny were impious and blasphemous. Though it was almost universally believed for more than a thousand years, the Bible contains no mention of the Assumption of Mary into heaven. The first Church writer to speak of Mary being taken up into heaven by God is Saint Gregory of Tours [594].
The following narrative taken from the “Poem of the Man-God” describes how all this took place.
Mary’s Death
When the time had come for Mary’s passage from this earth to her heavenly abode. She was filled with an ecstasy so great, with bursts of ardent love for God, that she was enraptured to heaven even though her body lay on the bed with Apostle John watching over her. Mary’s spirit was eternal but her body was not and it was subject, like the flesh of every man, to death. She did not suffer any disease, or the agony and pangs of death. For her it was just a transition from one dimension to another, from earth to heaven. Mary had spent her entire life in doing the will of God- The will to be a virgin was His will, to be married to Joseph was His will, her virginal divine maternity was His will. Everything in her life was done by the will of God and in obedience to the will of God. But the desire to join Jesus in heaven was her will entirely. Though Mary was born without the original sin she too had to die just as Jesus died. Mary being a Jewish woman and following all the Jewish customs can also be regarded as the first to receive the “Word Incarnate” in her womb and she was also the first disciple of Jesus.
Mary’s body was not subjected to corruption of the flesh because she was exempted from the original sin, she was full of grace. Therefore, her body could not experience decomposition, the corruption of dead flesh. Saint Germanus of Constantinople [d.733] wrote that Mary’s virginal body is an altogether holy and chaste dwelling for God and can never know dissolution into dust. Mary was fresh in her spirit but tired in her flesh. This is how her passing away took place as described in the book “The Poem of the Man-God” by Maria Valtorta. John, her adopted son, asked her to lie down on her bed. Mary lay down, folded her hands across her breast, and closed her eyes. She asked John to recite the Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer for her. As John was reciting the Psalms Mary breathed her last. When John realized that Mary had passed away, he picks up the edges of her wide linen mantle, which was hanging from the sides of the little bed and those of the veil, which were also hanging from the pillow and he spreads the former over her body and the latter on her head. Mary lies like a statue of white marble. John brings flowers and branches of olive – trees with olives already on them. He lights up the lamp and arranges the flowers and branches around Mary’s body. John knew that God, who had raised Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter from the dead, would definitely raise Mary from death. John exhausted from lack of sleep slumbers on a chair near Mary’s bed.
Mary’s Assumption
It was almost dawn because there was a faint light outside and the olive trees surrounding the house are visible. A light that becomes stronger and stronger penetrates through the door. Suddenly a strong light fills the room, a silvery light shaded with blue. Then in this paradisiac light, angelic creatures show themselves. They place themselves around the bed, bend over it and lift the immobile body and flapping their wings more vigorously, through a passage opened miraculously in the roof, they go away, taking with the them the body of their queen, a most holy body, not yet glorified and therefore still subject to the laws of matter.
The sound of the angel wings woke up John. The Apostle looks around to realize what is happening. He notices that the bed is empty and that the roof is open. He understands that a wonderful event has taken place. He runs out on the terrace and looks up. He sees the body of Mary, still deprived of life, ascending higher and higher, supported by the angelic group. Due to the wind some flowers, the ones that John had placed around the body of Mary, rain on the terrace. John continues to stare at the body that rises towards heaven and through the prodigy granted him by God, to comfort him and to reward him for his love for his adoptive mother, he distinctly sees Mary come out of the ecstasy that has separated her soul from her body, become alive, stand on her feet, as she now enjoys the gifts typical of glorified bodies. The miracle granted to him by God enables him, against all natural laws, to see Mary as she is now, while she rapidly ascends towards heaven, surrounded but no longer helped to ascend, by the angels. John is enraptured by the vision of beauty that no pen, human word or work of an artist will ever be able to describe, because it is of indescribable beauty. God grants John a last supreme prodigy to see the meeting of the most Holy Mother with her most Holy Son, who splendid and shining as well as handsome with indescribable beauty descends rapidly from heaven, arrives at His mother’s side, presses her to his heart, and together, return to heaven.
As Mary was consumed with the desire to be united with her Divine Son in heaven, her soul departed from her body and united itself to Him, who, out of the excessive love He bore for His Mother, whose virginal body was His First Tabernacle, took that body into heaven and there amidst the acclaims of the angels and saints, reinfused into it His soul. Upon being taken up to heaven, she was triply crowned as the August Queen of Heaven by God the Father as His beloved daughter, by God the Son as His dearest mother, and by God the Holy Spirit as His chosen spouse.
Mary’s Assumption is said to have been a divine gift to Mary as “Mother of God”. The title “Mother of God” [in Greek, Theotokos], was officially conferred upon Mary at the Council of Ephesus, in 431.
The Cathechism of the Catholic Church [966] says “Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of Lords and conqueror of sin and death.” The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians.
In 1568, Pope Pius V declared the Feast of the Assumption a holy day for the entire Church. Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950, in an Apostolic Constitution, declared the Assumption to be a dogma [a teaching which the Church declares is true and which must be accepted in faith by all Roman Catholics].
As a Christian, the feasts of Ascension and the Assumption are important reminders for us, that death is not the meaningless end of our existence. Jesus by His suffering and death, redeemed mankind. His Resurrection and Ascension into heaven gives us Christians new hope. Mary’s Assumption into heaven gives us an assurance that what God did for Mary, He will do for each of us. The Feast of Mary’s Assumption therefore is the Feast of Hope, where we believe that we will also be redeemed, with our bodies and souls and will enjoy forever the Eternal Glory of God.
“Jesus gave every human being to Mary, and commanded her to show to each one of us the heart of a mother. Mary fulfilled this, and she continues throughout eternity to fulfill with an incomparable perfection this command of God, just as she had all the others”
And now she is reigning in heaven as Queen over all the angels and saints. She reigns with Christ, her Son, over all the earth. With a merciful mother’s love, she embraces all the brothers and sisters of her Son. She is our Lady, our Heavenly Mother; she prays for us and obtains graces for us.
She is ‘Mother of Christians’.
“The present life is for eternity and our happiness is proportionate to our goodness on earth. And Mary Our Mother will help us to lead a good and holy life.”. [Blessed James Alberione]