An Ancient Assumption

On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII made the second infallible statement ever made by a pope.1  Since this was only 60 years ago,2 it’s easy to assume that it’s an innovation, a made-up doctrine that has nothing to do with the faith of the Apostles.  But there was nothing new about the doctrine, just the way it was expressed.  With a shout and a bang, he declared to be infallible a teaching that everyone had pretty much been cool with forever: the Assumption of Mary.

From the Cathedral at Chartres–have you been there? If so, have you been back since they started cleaning the glass? It’s incredible.

What is it?

The official teaching is that at the end of her life, Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven.  Note that she didn’t ascend (by her own power, as Christ did), but was assumed by God’s power.  There is no official stance on whether she floated up kicking and somersaulting, fell asleep,3 appeared to die, or chose to die but was immediately reunited with her body when she was assumed.  What matters is that she lives bodily in heaven with Christ, taken there by God’s miraculous grace.

Why do we believe it?

First and foremost, we believe it because it’s been presented to us as revealed by God.  The Holy Father almost never makes infallible proclamations.  Here, he’s exercising his power of infallibility4 to tell us this is true, so we accept it on faith.

But while that might be admirable on a personal level, it’s certainly not convincing.  As always, I’m a big fan of Scripture, Tradition, and reason to help us through.

Scripture doesn’t give us anything explicit, as is the case with many issues, it being a finite book.  Today’s first reading is as close as we get, where it describes a woman (Rev 12:1) who is the Ark of the Covenenant (Rev 11:19), the mother of the Savior (Rev 12:5), and the mother of all believers (Rev 12:17).  Sure sounds like Mary to me.  Verse 6 tells us that she “fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God.”  So the mother of the Savior, having finished her task, is taken up into a special place prepared for her.  Works for me.

Tradition on the matter isn’t quite as ancient as it is on many Catholic doctrines, but it dramatically predates the Reformation.  Apocryphal texts describe it as early as the 4th century, but I can see why we might not care about them.  Some of the heavy hitters pick it up pretty early, too, along with some more obscure theologians.

The Apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb; and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; and the holy body having been received, He commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise: where now, rejoined to the soul, [Mary] rejoices with the Lord’s chosen ones. . . (St. Gregory of Tours, Eight Books of Miracles 1:4, A.D. 575).

It was fitting that the she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped when giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father, It was fitting that God’s Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God (St. John Damascene, Dormition of Mary, A.D. 697)

By the end of the seventh century, Mary’s Assumption was so established as fact that it had its own feast day already, according to Pope St. Sergius.5

I think reason‘s strongest on this one.  We know that death (meaning the separation of body and soul) is a consequence of sin.  St. Paul tells us that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23).6  If Mary was without sin (which, I suppose, merits its own post, but just go with it for now), then she couldn’t have died.  Her time on earth came to an end, so God brought her to heaven body and soul (like Elijah and Enoch, so there’s a precedent).

Besides, not one church in the whole world claims to have Mary’s body.  In a world where a church, a museum, and a mosque all claim to have John the Baptist’s head (with three others apparently having been destroyed over the course of history), this silence on the location of Mary’s body is deafening.

I’m inclined to think it’s this one (Mary’s Tomb, an Orthodox church in the Kidron Valley of Jerusalem) simply because it looks older and cooler.

Two churches in Jerusalem claim to be the tomb of Mary, along with one in Ephesus, but nobody claims to have even a pinky toe of the world’s most important Saint.  For a Church that was grabbing at every body part imaginable to ascribe it to a Saint, this is pretty significant.  Not only was there no body, nobody even pretended that there was.  This only makes sense to me if the early Church understood that Mary had been assumed long before anyone bothered to write about it.

And then, of course, there’s the whole parallel between Mary and the Ark of the Covenant (linked above).  It’s unreasonable to assume7 that God would allow the vessel that contained his only-begotten Son to rot.  Her body had been made sacred and deserved to be treated with honor.  If he could preserve her from decay, why wouldn’t he?

Why did it happen?

Do you ever wonder, in the midst of scriptural acrobatics and wordy New Advent articles, why God did these things in the first place?  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that question–he’s always got a reason, and usually more than one.  There’s nothing unfaithful about trying to figure out why, and often it leads us to deeper faith.

Obviously, there are the theological explanations: that Mary’s immaculate nature could not suffer death, that God glorified Mary by giving her an end like that of his Son, or that our feminist God desired “that not only the soul and body of a man, but also the soul and body of a woman should have obtained heavenly glory.”8  Perhaps Mary was given a glorified body that she might teach us how to be fully human when we get our bodies back.9

Look how eager she is to touch him–she’s so cute!

Or maybe Jesus just loved his Momma so much that he wanted to be with her in heaven.  If you’ve got Spotify, do yourself a favor and listen to this song by Danielle Rose, a testimony to how beautiful the body of Mary is because of how it held and loved the body of Christ.  Maybe beneath all the theological significance is a sweet example of a son who just wanted to be with his Momma.  Maybe what we need to learn from it is to be homesick for heaven the way Mary was, to long to be in the presence of Christ so desperately that when our time comes we practically fly there.

There’s nothing innovative about the doctrine of the Assumption.  It’s an ancient doctrine whose beauty is ever-new, drawing us deeper into a love of Our Lady and a longing for heaven.  So praise God for the event and the Solemnity and the ex cathedra proclamation, and praise God especially for the gift of his mother as our mother, loving us from heaven and teaching us to follow Christ.

Mary Assumed into Heaven, pray for us!

 

  1. There are those who think that early popes made ex cathedra statements, but I haven’t seen any direct evidence of this. Certainly this was only the second of the modern era. []
  2. I say things like “only 60 years ago” to teenagers and they look at me like I’m crazy, but in the grand scheme of the Church, 60 years ain’t much. []
  3. Eastern Christians call this the Dormition, the falling asleep of Mary. []
  4. I had almost finished a post on infallibility yesterday when WordPress ate it. Eventually, I’ll overcome my discouragement and rewrite it. Bear with me. []
  5. No link on this one as nothing’s showing up in my feeble Google searches, but I have it on Pius XII’s authority, so we’ll go with it. []
  6. Can I just tell you that I stumble over this every time I encounter it because I know the verb is supposed to be singular but the subject is clearly plural and WHAT is going on with THAT??? []
  7. hah []
  8. Munificentissimus Deus 33 []
  9. You did know that we’re getting our bodies back, right? When we die, at best we become saints, but never angels. And at the end of the world, we’ll get our bodies back and I think we’ll be able to fly but there’s no official teaching on the matter 😛 []

Author: Meg

I'm a Catholic, madly in love with the Lord, His Word, His Bride the Church, and especially His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist. I'm committed to the Church not because I was raised this way but because the Lord has drawn my heart and convicted my reason. After 2 degrees in theology and 5 years in the classroom, I quit my 9-5 to follow Christ more literally. Since May of 2012, I've been a hobo for Christ; I live out of my car and travel the country speaking to youth and adults, giving retreats, blogging, and trying to rock the world for Jesus.

3 thoughts on “An Ancient Assumption”

    1. Good find, Katie–I hadn’t seen that before. It’s important to note that the infallible proclamation doesn’t specify how Mary’s life on earth ended. JPII’s audience is about as non-authoritative as a Pope can be, so one could theoretically take it or leave it. He is, however, dramatically more intelligent and better-informed than I, so even though he’s not strictly exercising his magisterial authority here, I’m happy to go with it. I do think he’s making an argument, though, not a proclamation, and the proclamation seems to leave it open. But, as I’ll write when I discuss to what degree we have to submit to non-infallible Church authority, unless I’ve got really good reason to question a pope, I’ll assume he’s right even when he’s not requiring that I agree 🙂

      Which might be too many words just to say that what I wrote wasn’t heresy but JPII’s probably more right.

  1. “Assumption” is right. Nowhere in scripture does it say Mary was without sin. It says she found grace (free, spontaneous, absolute favor and loving-kindness) with God. Free=unearned. A gift. She didn’t earn anything. To assume anyone other than Jesus was sinless contradicts the gospel itself and goes directly against His very teaching that He is the ONLY way to God. To assert that we need an intermediary between us and Jesus also contradicts His teaching of being the way, truth and life. No one comes to the father but through Him and Him alone. Otherwise He would have taught us to go to Mary. He did not. Further, Mary’s words to us herself are to listen to Jesus (Jn 2). And please do not quote the Apocrypha as Scripture. It is not. Biblical scholars have agreed for centuries that the Apocryphal books do not pass canonical tests.

    I admire your love for God and share it. However, I’m amazed that you would put a man’s word (a pope) and the questionable Apocrypha above the New Testament. I personally left Catholicism because of its legalistic, “earn it” doctrine regarding salvation, and all the rules & sacraments added to the pure message of Christ: salvation by grace, through faith, as a free gift of God. Not by works, lest any man (or woman) should boast.

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