Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: The History
The solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was fixed on August 15th as early as the 5th century, with the meaning of “Birth into Heaven” or, in the Byzantine tradition, “Dormition”. In Rome, the feast has been celebrated since the mid-7th century, but it was not until November 1st, 1950, under Pius XII, that the dogma dedicated to Mary assumed into heaven in body and soul was proclaimed. In the Apostles’ Creed, we profess our faith in the “Resurrection of the body” and in “eternal life”, the ultimate end and meaning of life’s journey.
This promise of faith is already fulfilled in Mary, as a “sign of consolation and sure hope” (Preface). A privilege, Mary’s, closely linked to being the Mother of Jesus: since death and the corruption of the human body are consequences of sin, it was not fitting that the Virgin Mary – exempt from sin – should be affected by this human law. Hence, the mystery of the “Dormition” or “Assumption into Heaven”. The fact that Mary is already assumed into heaven is for us a reason for gladness, joy, and hope: “Already and not yet”. A creature of God – Mary – is already in heaven: with and like her, we too, creatures of God, will be there one day.
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The destiny of Mary, united to the transfigured and glorious body of Jesus, will therefore be the destiny of all those who are united to the Lord Jesus in faith and love. It is interesting to note that the liturgy – through biblical texts taken from the book of Revelation and Luke, with the singing of the Magnificat – aims not so much to make us reflect as to pray: the Gospel in fact suggests reading the mystery of Mary in the light of her prayer, the Magnificat:
the gratuitous love that extends from generation to generation, and the predilection for the least and the poor finds its best fruit in Mary, one could say her masterpiece, a mirror in which the entire people of God can reflect their own features.
The solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in body and soul, is the eloquent sign of how not only “the soul” but also “corporeality” is confirmed as “something very good” (Gen 1:31), so much so that, as in the Virgin Mary, “our flesh” will be assumed into heaven. This does not exempt us from engaging in history, quite the contrary: it is precisely the gaze turned towards the Goal, towards Heaven, our Homeland, that drives us to commit ourselves to the present life in the footsteps of the Magnificat: joyful for God’s mercy, attentive to all the brothers and sisters we meet along the way, starting with the weakest and most fragile.
The Proclamation of the Dogma
“Therefore, after we have yet again poured forth suppliant prayers to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has poured out His special benevolence upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of His Son, the immortal King of the ages and the victor over sin and death, to the greater glory of His 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.” (Pius XII; Munificentissimus Deus, November 1, 1950)
Giving Praise
Today the Virgin Mary, with her Magnificat, teaches us to give praise and glory to God. An invitation through which the Virgin Mary, today contemplated in glory, invites us to act by stepping out of our usual tendency to magnify problems and difficulties. Mary is capable, and today she teaches us too, to look at life from another angle: our heart is greater than our sins, and even if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart! (cf. 1 Jn 3:20).
It is therefore not an illusion, as if there were no problems in life, but it is about valuing the beauty and the good that exists in life and knowing how to give thanks to God for it! In this way, problems too are put into perspective.
God Surprises
A second aspect that deserves to be highlighted on this day is the fact that Mary was a virgin and Elizabeth was barren. God is the One who goes “beyond”, who surprises you with His providential action of salvation.
The Goal
Mary is now in the glory of God, she has reached the Goal where one day we will all meet again. This is why Mary is today a sign of consolation and hope, because if she, a creature like us, has arrived, we could reach it too. Let us keep our gaze and our hearts fixed on Her who never abandoned her Son Jesus and with Him today enjoys the joy and glory of Heaven.
And let us entrust ourselves to Her so that she may help us walk the path of life, knowing how to recognize the great things that God accomplishes in us and around us, so as to be able to magnify Him with the song of our existence.
Prayer to Mary Assumed into Heaven
O Immaculate Mary Assumed into heaven,
you who live most blessed in the vision of God:
of God the Father who made you a sublime creature, of God the Son who willed to be
born a man from you and have you as His mother, of God the Holy Spirit who in you
fulfilled the human conception of the Savior.
O purest Mary
O sweetest and most beautiful Mary
O Mary, strong and thoughtful woman
O Mary, poor and sorrowful
O Mary, virgin and mother
most human woman like Eve, more than Eve.
Close to God in your grace, in your privileges
in your mysteries
in your mission, in your glory.
O Mary assumed into the glory of Christ
in the complete and transfigured perfection of our human nature.
O Mary, gate of heaven
mirror of divine light
sanctuary of the Covenant between God and men,
let our souls fly after you
let them ascend behind your radiant path
carried by a hope that the world does not possess, that of eternal beatitude.
Comfort us from heaven, O merciful Mother, and through your ways
of purity and hope guide us one day to the blessed encounter with you
and with your divine Son
our Savior Jesus. Amen!
(Saint Paul VI)
fonte © Vatican News – Dicasterium pro Communicatione
The Assumption of Mary into Heaven is a Catholic dogma stating that Mary, mother of Jesus, at the moment of her death (“*Dormition of Mary*”) was immediately transferred, in both soul and body, into Heaven, where she was “*assumed*”, meaning received, welcomed.
«*It was fitting* – writes St. John Damascene – *that she who in childbirth had preserved her virginity intact should preserve her body intact from corruption after death. It was fitting that she who had carried the Creator as a child in her womb should dwell in the divine tabernacles.
It was fitting that the Spouse of God should enter the heavenly bridal chamber. It was fitting that she who had seen her own Son on the Cross, receiving in her body the sorrow that had been spared her in childbirth, should contemplate Him seated at the right hand of the Father. It was fitting that the Mother of God should possess what belonged to her by reason of her Son and that she should be honored by all creatures as Mother and handmaid of God*».
Mary appears for the last time in the New Testament writings in the first chapter of Acts, verse 14: “*All these joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers*.” She is in the midst of the apostles, in prayer in the Upper Room, awaiting the descent of the Holy Spirit.
The conciseness of the inspired texts is countered by the abundance of information about the Madonna in the apocryphal writings, especially the Protoevangelium of James and the Account of St. John the Theologian on the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God. The term “dormition” is the oldest referring to the conclusion of Mary’s earthly life.
In the East, around the 5th century, among Christians and Monophysite Eastern Churches (the Armenian and Coptic peoples), the Marian cult began under the name “*Dormitio virginis*”, reinforced in its spread by Emperor Maurice (582-602) who ordered its celebration throughout the Empire; in the West it arrived in Spain and Gaul in the 6th century, and in Rome in 650 it was celebrated on August 15th with the name of Dormitio or Assumption.
A “*constitutum*” of St. Sergius I (687-701) speaks of the feast of the dormitio for which a solemn procession was held.
This custom spread with St. Leo IV (847-855) who had its vigil and octave celebrated.
The dogmatic definition, pronounced by the Venerable Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli, 1939-1958) on November 1st, 1950, declaring that Mary did not have to await, like other creatures, the end of time to benefit also from bodily redemption, wanted to highlight the unique character of her personal sanctification, since sin never overshadowed, even for a single instant, the clarity of her soul. The definitive union, spiritual and bodily, of man with the glorious Christ, is the final and eternal phase of redemption. Thus the blessed, who already enjoy the beatific vision, are in a certain sense awaiting the fulfillment of redemption, which in Mary had already occurred through the singular grace of preservation from sin.
In the light of this doctrine, which has its foundation in Sacred Scripture, in the so-called “*Protoevangelium*”, containing the first announcement of messianic salvation given by God to our first parents after the fall, Mary is presented as the new Eve, closely united to the new Adam, Jesus.
Jesus and Mary are indeed associated in sorrow and love to repair the fault of our first parents. Mary is therefore not only the mother of the Redeemer, but also his co-worker, closely united to him in the struggle and decisive victory. This intimate union requires that Mary also triumph, like Jesus, not only over sin, but also over death, the two enemies of the human race. And just as Christ’s redemption concludes with the resurrection of the body, Mary’s victory over sin, with the Immaculate Conception, had to be complete with victory over death through the glorification of the body, with the assumption, since the fullness of Christian salvation is the participation of the body in heavenly glory.
From the Homily of Pope Benedict XVI (Castel Gandolfo, August 15, 2008)
*Dear brothers and sisters*,
The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the oldest Marian feast, returns every year in the heart of summer. […]
Let us ask Mary to give us today the gift of her faith, that faith which makes us already live in this dimension between the finite and the infinite, that faith which also transforms the sense of time and the passing of our existence, that faith in which we intimately feel that our life is not sucked into the past, but drawn towards the future, towards God, where Christ has preceded us and behind Him, Mary.
Looking at the One assumed into heaven, we better understand that our daily life, though marked by trials and difficulties, flows like a river towards the divine ocean, towards the fullness of joy and peace. We understand that our dying is not the end, but the entry into the life that knows no death. Our setting on the horizon of this world is a rising at the dawn of the new world, of the eternal day.
“*Mary, as you accompany us in the toil of our daily living and dying, keep us constantly oriented towards the true homeland of beatitude. Help us to do as you have done*”.
Dear brothers and sisters, dear friends who take part in this celebration this morning, let us make this prayer to Mary together. In the face of the sad spectacle of so much false joy and at the same time of so much anguished pain spreading across the world, we must learn from Her to become signs of hope and consolation ourselves, we must announce Christ’s resurrection with our lives.
“*Help us, Mother, shining Gate of heaven, Mother of Mercy, source through which our life and our joy, Jesus Christ, burst forth. Amen*”.
fonte © vangelodelgiorno.org
