MARY'S AND CHURCH'S ASSUMPTION

MARY’S ASSUMPTION and THE CHURCH’S

                                     

In November 1950, Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary into heaven as a dogma of the Catholic Faith, deriving from the Church’s contemplation of Mary’s divine motherhood and intimate association with Jesus Christ in the mystery of his life, death and exaltation. Her surrender to God’s will was so complete that her Son pointed her body in the direction of his own Resurrection. As it was fitting that the Mother of the Incarnate Word should be completely without sin  -  “Immaculate Conception”  - so it was equally fitting that her body be preserved from corruption. With the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception, the dogma of the Assumption was already hovering in the wings. In speaking about the Blessed Virgin Mary we should be sparing in the use of superlatives, as though the example of her life were an unattainable ideal. Artistic interpretations of the Assumption tend to give an impression of the remoteness of an idyllic parable of the Virgin being swept up to an ethereal world far removed from human concerns. The truth of the matter is that we cannot understand Mary except within the whole picture of salvation, which connects her destiny with that of her Son and of ours. From the cradle to the Cross Mary was intimately involved in the drama of redemption. “Drama” may well be a large word and fail to convey the grimy drabness of daily living and the dreariness of dying.

 

The Two Versions

The dogma of Mary’s Assumption is not a distillate of the mists of antiquity or a deliberate piece of social construction, but is the assertion of hard as nails fact. There are two versions of the Assumption of Mary. There is the church of the Assumption in Jerusalem, built over the tomb that is said to have received the body of Mary. But in Ephesus in northern Turkey there is a rival site. One version holds that Mary continued to live in Jerusalem during the earliest years of the Church, and that she “fell asleep” after quite a short time. Her death is fondly described as “falling asleep” or “dormition”. The other version holds that she lived for several decades after the crucifixion of Jesus. About the time of the destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), she had moved to Ephesus in company with the beloved disciple, to whose care Jesus had entrusted her. According to this version, she would have died at Ephesus. Ephesus was in the ancient world a great centre of goddess-worship, because there stood in the city the world-famous temple of Artemis or Diana (Acts of the Apostles, chap. 19). It was either from Jerusalem or Ephesus that Mary was carried up to heaven.

 

Corollary of the Ascension

The Assumption does not mean that Mary’s body floated out into trackless space. The heaven to which Jesus ascended and to which Mary was assumed is not a borough in the sky, but a new level of existence. Jesus, at his Ascension, did not go into a readymade heaven that was awaiting him; rather, he created heaven, understood as the meeting point of personal relations. The word “heaven” is a pictorial device, which directs our minds to a human condition beyond the one that we know at present: a human condition charged with the divine.

In 1950 Pope Pius XII declared infallibly “the Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, on completing the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” The Assumption is a transformation of the human condition from its familiar earthly status to a new mode of being in which it enjoys an immediate relation to God. In his declaration, Pope Pius XII gives the reason for the Assumption: “It seems impossible that she who conceived Christ, fed him with her milk, held him in her arms and pressed him to her bosom, should after this earthly life be separated from him in either body or soul.” The end of their association on earth could not break the closeness of Jesus and Mary. It is the fulfilment of the Lord’s promise to all his followers that “where I am there you will be also” (Gospel of John 14,3). The Assumption of Mary and eventually of the whole Church is a consequence or corollary of the Ascension of Jesus.

 

Beyond Personal Assumption

The dogma of the Assumption is far broader in its meaning than appears at first sight. It is a personal dogma about Mary, indeed, but goes beyond that. Mary’s glorious Assumption is the first step of the glorious assumption of the Church. The Second Vatican Council has stated that Mary is “the model of the Church...In the glory which she possesses in body and soul in heaven she is the image and the beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come” (Lumen Gentium, no. 68). The Feast of the Assumption is not only the celebration of Mary, but at the same time a celebration of redeemed humanity. Some Christian thinkers have the baleful habit of denigrating the human race, dwelling on our sins and depravity, as if they could glorify God by putting down man and emphasising the infinite difference between Creator and creature. Such people have settled for a profound pessimism. This is a travesty of the truth. St. Ireneus declared, “The glory of God is man fully alive; and the life of man consists in beholding God.”

 

A Broader Assumption

We Christians can affirm that, beyond reasonable doubt, at some time in the first century of our era in some Christian community in West Asia, the Blessed Virgin Mary fell asleep in death and went to be with her Son to receive the glory he had promised to bestow on his own. This is the classic moment of the Assumption and is worthy in itself to be celebrated. But it is the beginning of a vaster and universal assumption. That broader assumption is under way now. Whenever in the Church here on earth there is a gleam of divine glory, a faithful act of discipleship, a prayer offered in faith, a hand stretched out in love, there is assumption; human life is being lifted up to God by God. We believe too that in the Church expectant, souls are being perfected towards the day of Jesus Christ. Finally, in the Church triumphant, the work will be complete, and, with Mary and all the saints, the people of God will have attained to his eternal kingdom of glory, peace and bliss.

Mary’s Assumption leaves us with the shimmering dream of great things to come.

 

PRAYER of Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444)

Hail Mary, Mother of God,

the whole world’s treasure, commanding its reverence,

lamp that will never cease to burn,

crowning glory of the virgin state,

mainstay of orthodox faith,

temple that none can demolish,

place that encompasses him whom no place encompasses,

both mother and virgin.

Thanks to you, he who comes in the name of the Lord

is called blessed in the holy Gospels.

Hail to you: to him that is not bounded by any place

you have given a place in your holy virginal womb.

Thanks to you, the Trinity is glorified and the cross called precious

and given honour throughout the world.

Thanks to you, the heavens rejoice,

the angels and archangels keep festival,

and evil spirits are put to flight.