The summer feast of Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary is known also as Marymass. The feast is about the fulfillment of the promise God made to us: to live fully and wholly with Him in heaven, to be united with Him body and soul. Neither sin nor death would grasp her being.
So, we believe that Mary, the Mother of the Incarnate Word, Jesus, did not suffer the indignity of the decomposition of the human body. In defining the dogma of the Assumption in 1950, Pope Pius XII left as an open question as to whether or not Mary died. The Greek Church calls this feast the Falling Asleep –the Dormition of Mary– pointing to the notion that Mary died and yet at that very moment she was called by her Son to the fullness of Life Eternal without delay and decay. Here is reflection by Saint John Damascene:
“It was fitting that she who had preserved her virginity inviolate in childbirth should also have her body kept free from all corruption after death. It was fitting that she who had carried the Creator as a child on her breast should dwell in the tabernacles of God. It was fitting that the bride espoused by the Father should make her home in the bridal chambers of heaven. It was fitting that she, who had gazed on her crucified Son and been pierced in the heart by the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in giving him birth, should contemplate him seated with the Father. It was fitting that the Mother of God should share the possessions of her Son, and be venerated by every creature as the Mother and handmaid of God.”
May we enter into deeper communion with the Holy Trinity so that we, like the great Mother of God, live body and soul at the end of time. Our Lady of the Assumption, pray for us.