Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Lectionary: 622

A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

When I explained the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary to a Protestant minister several years ago, he asked, "Do you believe that?"

I was astonished and replied. "Of course I believe it! Why would I not believe it? This is our teaching." 

I had never been asked that question so directly and was caught quite off guard.

 

This teaching has come down to us through many centuries of prayer and devotion, through many homilies, lectures, treatises, and books. That Mary, at the end of her life, was assumed into heaven made sense to millions of Catholics, both clergy and lay. If the doctrine was never formally declared before Pope Pius XII made it official in 1950, that only demonstrated how unnecessary it was to declare it so. 

Enough has been written on the doctrine, and is available to anyone who can google, that I need not cite proof texts from scripture or present logical arguments. I am more content to say, "This is what we believe and I would be a fool to contest it, given my limited knowledge of the scriptures, tradition, and theological history. Why would I challenge some of the most brilliant minds and devout souls in the history of the world?"

I imagine Mary's assumption into heaven as her stepping through the veil between heaven and earth. I sometimes say to grieving persons, "Your loved ones are gone, but they're not gone far. You'll continue to talk to them, and they'll talk to you. If you ask, they'll comfort, advise, and guide you." 

Because we celebrate Mary's assumption we no longer grieve her death. There must have been a moment when the disciples of Jesus, learning that she had died, felt stricken. She was an important physical connection to Jesus of Nazareth. But it could not have been more than a moment for they were as sure of her Assumption as they were of his Resurrection. Where he had gone, she surely followed. Where they have gone, we also hurry to catch up. 

But she also steps through the veil on occasion to comfort, advise, and guide us today. How many of her apparitions are celebrated by the Church, from Guadalupe to Medjugorje? The Church is never hasty in approving these incidents since they only reiterate the standard teachings and encourage the same prayers; nor does the Mother of God need the Church's approval. But the Church does admit there is no harm and many likely blessings in attending the shrines where Mary has been seen. 

Perhaps, more importantly, the Holy Spirit continually leads us to pray with Mary in our homes, churches, and shrines, with rosaries, angeluses, and innumerable devotions -- under her thousands of titles -- and on many feast days which are kept by the entire church, or particular dioceses, or local parishes. She visits us just as surely as she visited her kinswoman Elizabeth.  

Recalling Mary's physical connection to the Lord, which we observe by remembering her physical assumption into heaven, should also remind us our physical contact with Jesus through the Eucharist. Let's conclude with the words of Pope Saint John Paul II:

Her motherhood is particularly noted and experienced by the Christian people at the Sacred Banquet-the liturgical celebration of the mystery of the Redemption-at which Christ, his true body born of the Virgin Mary, becomes present.

The piety of the Christian people has always very rightly sensed a profound link between devotion to the Blessed Virgin and worship of the Eucharist: this is a fact that can be seen in the liturgy of both the West and the East, in the traditions of the Religious Families, in the modern movements of spirituality, including those for youth, and in the pastoral practice of the Marian Shrines. Mary guides the faithful to the Eucharist.  Redemptoris Mater March 25, 1987