Author: Paul Zalonski

In a Georgian Hymnal we see a verse of a hymn which reads:

You went forth from the world,
O virgin Theotokos,
to the eternal light.

The sacred Liturgy bases its Marian Theology on the biblical images of Mary as the “New Eve,” the
“Beloved of the Bridegroom,” the “Ark of the Covenant,” and the “Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven.” From what we read in sacred Scripture to what we know by sacred Tradition, Mary remains the mother of mystery. Our Catholic belief is that Mary was raised up body and soul and sits in heaven with the Blessed Trinity. But was she raised up like Enoch (Genesis 5:24) or Elijah (2 King 3:11)? When Pope Pius XII declared the Assumption of Mary as a dogma of the Faith in the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus, he deliberately left the question open, saying that Mary was assumed after “having completed the course of her earthly life.” Later, Pope John Paul II said that he believes Mary, like her Son, experienced the “human drama of death.” Perhaps Saint John of Damascus says it best:  “As the Mother of the living God, she goes through death to Him. For if God said: ‘Unless the first man put out his hand to take and taste of the tree of life, he shall live forever,’ how shall she, who received the Life Himself, without beginning or end, or finite vicissitudes, not live forever.”

Looking at the consistent teaching and liturgical observance of the fact of the Assumption it is clear that the Church, East and West, has believed from the earliest days that Mary shared in her Son’s dramatic victory over death by conquering death. The Apostle Paul and the prophet Isaiah called this fact “the swallowing up of death.” AND this is a reason for our Hope. 

Many of our Protestant brothers and sisters reject this feast as idolatry, missing what Pope
Pius said about the divine truth revealed in the Assumption: In Mary, Mothers of God, we know, “to what lofty goal our bodies and souls are destined.” The Church, therefore, prays at Mass this collect:

Almighty and Eternal God, You Who assumed the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of Your Son, body and soul into heavenly glory, grant, we beseech You, that, always intent on higher things, we may merit to be sharers in her glory.

And the Preface

Since today the Virgin Mother of God was assumed into heaven
as the beginning and pattern of your Church’s perfection
and a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people,
For justly you would not allow her
to see the corruption of the tomb,
because from her own flesh she brought forth ineffably
your incarnate Son, the author of all life.

(Draft 2006 I.C.E.L. Translation)