Today, August 15, the universal Church celebrates the solemnity of Mary’s assumption into heaven. The Catholic Church, through the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus (The Most Bountiful God) of Pope Pius XII, issued on November 1, 1950, infallibly declared “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” (§ 44).
There are five reasons that amply account for the assumption dogma. First, Mary shares in her Son Jesus’ lot.
As Fr William Most wrote: “[T]he New Eve had been closely associated with the New Adam in the struggle against sin and death. Still further, in the case of her Son, that struggle had brought glorification. Since the struggle was in common to both, then a common cause would have a common effect: it had to bring a parallel glorification to her, the assumption.”
Second, because Mary was God’s earthly inhabiting place, in her the eternal dwelling place has already been set everlastingly. If Christ returned to His heavenly “dwelling place”, it is logical that His mother would share with Him the same fate.
Third, Mary’s assumption occurs because of her immaculate conception.
In Munificentissimus Deus, Pope Pius XII explains: “These two privileges (immaculate conception and assumption) are most closely bound to one another. 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” (§ 4).
Fourth, the Bible itself proclaims the assumption dogma in Revelation 12:1. Here, it speaks of “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars”.
The Marian implications are too strong to be ignored. Even if the woman referred to in Revelation stands for Eve, Israel or the Church, all these different interpretations allude somehow to Mary. In Catholic theology, Mary personifies the old Israel and the new people of God, the Church.
Mary is also the New Eve, this time an obedient Eve, who submits her will to God’s plan.
Finally, Mary’s assumption reveals how Jesus honoured his earthly Mother. As the British philosopher of religion, Richard Swinburne, wrote: “[A] perfectly good being will in any situation do the best possible act, if there is such an act”.
Certainly the best possible manner for Jesus to honour His Mother would be of granting her the privilege of being assumed body and soul into heaven.
Mary’s assumption demonstrates the moral and spiritual calibre that is magnificently infused in every woman. Mary is the exemplar of a genuinely liberated woman. She is a woman who freely accepts her vocation and perfectly knows that she is loved by God and all the future generations.
Mary is the exemplar of a genuinely liberated woman
In his apostolic letter on the dignity and vocation of women, Mulieris Dignitatem, Blessed John Paul II said that Mary stands as “a model of the sequela Christi, an example of how the bride must respond with love to the love of the bridegroom” (§ 27).
Because she is a timeless role model for women, Mary encourages them to continue being a special gift for God and others mainly in two ways: their complete (virginal) receptivity for God and their giving of self (maternal) to others.
Irrespective of whether they are married or single, mothers or deeply engaged in the professional world, every woman can drastically change for the better our world precisely by acknowledging and living faithfully her singular value of femininity and its related vital mission.
Hence, Mary, the ideal woman, stimulates all women to be like her: committed witnesses and prominent catalysts in the execution of God’s will, in other words of “what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2). Their unique contribution will definitely elevate both the Church and society from the misery of sin into the ever-transforming bliss of virtue and fraternal communion.