The Assumption of Mary was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her life. The Virgin Mary "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." Mary's assumption is a divine gift to her as the 'Mother of God'. Mary completed her life as a shining example to the human race, the perspective of the gift of assumption is offered to the whole human race.
The Assumption is a major feast day, commonly celebrated on August 15. In many countries it is a Catholic Holy Day of Obligation.
In John 14:3, Jesus tells his disciples at the Last Supper, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also."
Mary is the pledge of the fulfillment of Christ's promise. The Assumption and her acceptance into the glory of Heaven is seen as the symbol of the promise made by Jesus to all enduring Christians that they too will be received into paradise.
The prophet's words: "I will glorify the place of my feet," [Isaiah 60:13] is certain that the divine Redeemer had bedecked with supreme glory his most beloved Mother from whom he had received human flesh. A clear statement that the Blessed Virgin has been assumed in her body, where was the place of the Lord's feet..."
In Luke 1:28, words used by the angel who addressed her "Hail, full of grace" stated clearly and incisively that she was exempted from the fourfold curse that had been laid upon Eve [cf. Genesis 3:16]. It is entirely certain that God would never have permitted her body to have been resolved into dust and ashes.
In Song of Songs 8:5, "Who is this that comes up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?" From this we can see that she is there bodily...her blessedness would not have been complete unless she were there as a person. The soul is not a person, but the soul, joined to the body, is a person. It is manifest that she is there in soul and in body. Otherwise she would not possess her complete beatitude.
1 Corinthians 15 reads, "For by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But every one in his own order: the firstfruits Christ, then they that are of Christ, who have believed in his coming. Afterwards the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father, when he shall have brought to nought all principality, and power, and virtue. For he must reign, until he hath put all his enemies under his feet. And the enemy death shall be destroyed last: For he hath put all things under his feet."
In this passage Paul alludes to Genesis 3:15 (in addition to the primary reference of Psalms 8:6), where it is prophesied that the seed of the woman will crush Satan with his feet. Since, then, Jesus arose to Heaven to fulfill this prophecy, it follows that the woman would have a similar end, since she shared this enmity with Satan. The struggle against the infernal foe which, as foretold in the protoevangelium [i.e. Genesis 3:15], would finally result in that most complete victory over the sin and death which are always mentioned together in the writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Consequently, just as the glorious resurrection of Jesus was an essential part and the final sign of this victory, so that struggle which was common to the Blessed Virgin and her divine Son should be brought to a close by the glorification of her virginal body, for the same Apostle says: "When this mortal thing hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory."
Psalms 132, a liturgical psalm commemorating the return of the Ark of God to Jerusalem[30] and lamenting its subsequent loss. The second half of the psalm says that the loss will be recompensed in the New Covenant, and so it is hopefully prayed, "Arise, O Lord, into thy resting place: thou and the ark, which thou hast sanctified". Since the Church sees this New Covenant ark in Mary, it understands that she was taken into Heaven in the same manner as the Lord – that is, body and soul.
Psalms 45:9–17 for support of a heavenly Queen present bodily with the heavenly King Jesus, and Song of Songs 3:6, 4:8, and 6:9, which speaks of David's lover "that goeth up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense, and of all the powders of the perfumer".
In Revelation 12:1-2, "that woman clothed with the sun" whom John the Apostle contemplated on the Island of Patmos" as support for the doctrine. The text seems to parallel this woman with the woman of the Genesis 3 prophecy (and hence Mary): for in verse 9 the passage recalls "that old serpent" of Genesis 3, and reflects the prophecy that God would place "enmities between thee [i.e. Satan] and the woman, and thy seed and her seed" when it says that Satan "was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed" (Rev. 12:17).
All these passages – viz., John 14:3, Isaiah 60:13, Luke 1:28, Song of Songs 8:5, 1st Corinthians 15:21–26, Psalms 132:8, Psalms 45:9–17, Song of Songs 3:6, 4:8, 6:9, Genesis 3:15, and Revelation 12:1–2 – are drawn upon as Scriptural support of the Assumption both in that original document, and today by Catholic apologists.
Published:
August 15, 2017, 5:19 AM
August 15, 2015, 5:45 AM
August 15, 2011, 8:05AM
