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The
Assumption of Mary Into Heaven
Also See:
Blessed Virgin Mary (Topic Page)
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"Arise,
O Lord, into thy resting place: thou and the ark, which thou hast
sanctified." [Ps. 131:8 (132:8)]
"As the
Immaculate Conception was our
baptism, in Mary anticipated, so is the assumption the
resurrection of the body, our resurrection, anticipated in
Mary." (Rickaby)
"Jesus did not wish to have
the body of Mary corrupted after death, since it would have
redounded to his own dishonor to have her virginal flesh, from
which he himself had assumed flesh, reduced to dust." (St.
Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church)
"Finally,
since the Church has never looked for the bodily relics of the
Blessed Virgin nor proposed them for the veneration of the people,
we have a proof [of the Assumption] on the order of a sensible
experience." (Pope
Pius XII, "Munificentissimus Deus", 1950)
"God,
the King of the universe, has granted you favors that surpass
nature. As he kept you a virgin in childbirth, thus he has kept
your body incorrupt in the tomb and has glorified it by his divine
act of transferring it from the tomb." (Menaei Totius Anni, as
quoted in Pope Pius XII's "Munificentissimus Deus")
"He
whom she received at His entrance into this poor world, receives
her today at the gate of the Holy City. No spot on earth so worthy
of the Son of God as the Virgin's womb: no throne in heaven so
lofty as that whereon the Son of Mary places her in return. What a
reception each gave to the other!" (St. Bernard, Doctor of
the Church)
"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." (St. Bonaventure,
Doctor of the Church)
"We had closed Paradise; you opened again
the entryway to the tree of life. We turn joys into sorrow; you
turned sorrow back into the greatest of joys for us. And how would
you, the Immaculate, taste of death? You are the bridge to life,
you are the staircase to heaven" (St. John Damascene, Doctor
of the Church, c.
8th century A.D.)
"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. Germanus of
Constantinople)
"Along
with many others, the Seraphic Doctor [St. Bonaventure] held the
same views. He considered it as entirely certain that, as God had
preserved the most holy Virgin Mary from the violation of her
virginal purity and integrity in conceiving and in childbirth, he
would never have permitted her body to have been resolved into
dust and ashes." (Pope
Pius XII, "Munificentissimus Deus", 1950 A.D.)
"In
the liturgical books which deal with the feast either of the
dormition or of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin there are
expressions that agree in testifying that, when the Virgin Mother
of God passed from this earthly exile to heaven, what happened to
her sacred body was, by the decree of divine Providence, in
keeping with the dignity of the Mother of the Word Incarnate, and
with the other privileges she had been accorded." (Pope Pius XII, "Munificentissimus
Deus", 1950)
"Let death pass you by, O Mother of God,
because you have brought life to men. Let the tomb pass you by,
because you have been made the foundation stone of inexplicable
sublimity. Let dust pass you by; for you are a new kind of
formation, so that you may be mistress over those who have been
corrupted in the very stuff of their potter's clay" (St. Germain I of
Constantinople, a. 733 A.D.)
"And who, I ask, could believe that the ark of holiness, the dwelling place of the Word of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, could be reduced to ruin? My soul is filled with horror at the thought that this virginal flesh which had begotten God, had brought Him into the world, had nourished and carried Him, could have been turned into ashes or given over to be food for worms." (St. Robert
Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church)
"In
like manner St. Francis de Sales, after asserting that it is wrong
to doubt that Jesus Christ has himself observed, in the most
perfect way, the divine commandment by which children are ordered
to honor their parents, asks this question: 'What son would not
bring his mother back to life and would not bring her into
paradise after her death if he could?' And St. Alphonsus writes
that 'Jesus did not wish to have the body of Mary corrupted after
death, since it would have redounded to his own dishonor to have
her virginal flesh, from which he himself had assumed flesh,
reduced to dust.'" (Pope Pius XII, "Munificentissimus
Deus", 1950)
"It was fitting that 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 in the act of 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, Doctor of the Church)
"Christ
overcame sin and death by his own death, and one who through
Baptism has been born again in a supernatural way has conquered
sin and death through the same Christ. Yet, according to the
general rule, God does not will to grant to the just the full
effect of the victory over death until the end of time has come.
And so it is that the bodies of even the just are corrupted after
death, and only on the last day will they be joined, each to its
own glorious soul. Now God has willed that the Blessed Virgin Mary
should be exempted from this general rule. She, by an entirely
unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate
Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of
remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to
wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body."
(Pope Pius XII, "Munificentissimus Deus", 1950)
"Often
there are theologians and preachers who, following in the
footsteps of the holy Fathers, have been rather free in their use
of events and expressions taken from Sacred Scripture to explain
their belief in the Assumption. Thus, to mention only a few of the
texts rather frequently cited in this fashion, some have employed
the words of the psalmist: 'Arise, O Lord, into your resting
place: you and the ark, which you have sanctified'; and have
looked upon the Ark of the Covenant, built of incorruptible wood
and placed in the Lord's temple, as a type of the most pure body
of the Virgin Mary, preserved and exempt from all the corruption
of the tomb and raised up to such glory in heaven. Treating of
this subject, they also describe her as the Queen entering
triumphantly into the royal halls of heaven and sitting at the
right hand of the divine Redeemer. Likewise they mention the
Spouse of the Canticles 'that goes up by the desert, as a pillar
of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense' to be
crowned. These are proposed as depicting that heavenly Queen and
heavenly Spouse who has been lifted up to the courts of heaven
with the divine Bridegroom." (Pope Pius XII, "Munificentissimus
Deus", 1950)
"All
these proofs and considerations of the holy Fathers and the
theologians are based upon the Sacred Writings as their ultimate
foundation. These set the loving Mother of God as it were before
our very eyes as most intimately joined to her divine Son and as
always sharing his lot. Consequently it seems impossible to think
of her, the one who conceived Christ, brought him forth, nursed
him with her milk, held him in her arms, and clasped him to her
breast, as being apart from him in body, even though not in soul,
after this earthly life. Since our Redeemer is the Son of Mary, he
could not do otherwise, as the perfect observer of God's law, than
to honor, not only his eternal Father, but also his most beloved
Mother. And, since it was within his power to grant her this great
honor, to preserve her from the corruption of the tomb, we must
believe that he really acted in this way. We must remember
especially that, since the second century, the Virgin Mary has
been designated by the holy Fathers as the new Eve, who, although
subject to the new Adam, is most intimately associated with him in
that struggle against the infernal foe which, as foretold in the
protoevangelium [Gen. 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 Christ 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' [1 Cor. 15:54]. Hence
the revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden
way with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of
predestination, immaculate in her conception, a most perfect
virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine
Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its
consequences, finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her
privileges, that she should be preserved free from the corruption
of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she
might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as
Queen, she sits in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the
immortal King of the Ages. Since the universal Church, within
which dwells the Spirit of Truth who infallibly directs it toward
an ever more perfect knowledge of the revealed truths, has
expressed its own belief many times over the course of the
centuries, and since the bishops of the entire world are almost
unanimously petitioning that the truth of the bodily Assumption of
the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven should be defined as a dogma
of divine and Catholic faith - this truth which is based on the
Sacred Writings, which is thoroughly rooted in the minds of the
faithful, which has been approved in ecclesiastical worship from
the most remote times, which is completely in harmony with the
other revealed truths, and which has been expounded and explained
magnificently in the work, the science, and the wisdom of the
theologians - we believe that the moment appointed in the plan of
divine providence for the solemn proclamation of this outstanding
privilege of the Virgin Mary has already arrived... For which
reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again
and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of
Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special
affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the
immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for
the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the
joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our
Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by
our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a
divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the
ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life,
was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. Hence if anyone,
which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into
doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen
away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith." (Pope Pius XII, "Munificentissimus
Deus", 1950 A.D.)
Also
See: Infallible
Proclamation of the Assumption | The
Queenship of Mary | Praise
of Mary | The
Blessed Virgin's Intercession [Pg.] | Immaculate
Conception / Sinlessness [Pg.] | Mary's
Maternity [Pg.] | Jesus
& Mary [Pg.] | Marian
Facts | Marian
Scriptural References | Some
Reasons to Honor the Blessed Virgin Mary
| Some
Thoughts on the Blessed Virgin Mary
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