Apostolic Apologetics: The Assumption IntroductionThe Assumption of Mary is a belief held by Christians of the Catholic Church as well as some Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Anglicans, that the Virgin Mary, at the end of her life, was physically taken up into heaven. The assumption is sometimes called the "Dormition", especially in the Eastern Churches.OriginsThe belief in the Assumption is a result of Apostolic Tradition, and was held to by the Early Church Fathers, which is evident in writings as early as the third century.“If the Holy Virgin had died and was buried, her falling asleep would have been
surrounded with honour, death would have found her pure, and her crown would
have been a virginal one...Had she been martyred according to what is written:
'Thine own soul a sword shall pierce', then she would shine gloriously among
the martyrs, and her holy body would have been declared blessed; for by her,
did light come to the world." "[T]he 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..." Gregory of Tours, Eight Books of Miracles, 1:4 (inter A.D. 575-593).
"As the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Savior and God and the giver of
life and immortality, has been endowed with life by him, she has received an
eternal incorruptibility of the body together with him who has raised her up
from the tomb and has taken her up to himself in a way known only to him." "It was fitting ...that the most holy-body of Mary, God-bearing body, receptacle of God, divinised, incorruptible, illuminated by divine grace and full glory ...should be entrusted to the earth for a little while and raised up to heaven in glory, with her soul pleasing to God." Theoteknos of Livias, Homily on the Assumption (ante A.D. 650). "You are she who, as it is written, appears in beauty, and your virginal body is
all holy, all chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God, so that it is
henceforth completely exempt from dissolution into dust. Though still human, it
is changed into the heavenly life of incorruptibility, truly living and
glorious, undamaged and sharing in perfect life."
"St. 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
the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that
her tomb, when opened upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty;
wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven."
"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." "Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, who has begotten Thy Son our Lord incarnate from herself." Gregorian Sacramentary, Veneranda (ante A.D. 795).
"[A]n effable mystery all the more worthy of praise as the Virgin's Assumption
is something unique among men."
"God, the King of the universe, has granted you favors that surpass nature. As
he kept you virgin in childbirth, thus he kept your body incorrupt in the tomb
and has glorified it by his divine act of transferring it from the tomb."
"[T]he virgin is up to now immortal, as He who lived, translated her into the
place of reception." The DecreeHis Holiness Pope Pius XII defined ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in his Apostolic Constitution entitled "Munificentissimus Deus"; which in English means "The most bountiful God". It is the second ex-cathedra infallible statement ever made by a Pope, the first since the official ruling on Papal Infallibility was made at the First Vatican Council (1869-1870). In 1854, Pope Pius IX made an infallible statement with "Ineffabilis Deus" on the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, which was a basis for this dogma. The decree was promulgated on November 1, 1950.
The CatechismThe Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions the Assumption three times.966 "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 the 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:
2177 The Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church's life. "Sunday is the day on which the paschal mystery is celebrated in light of the apostolic tradition and is to be observed as the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church."
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