Today, we celebrate one of several Marian liturgical feast days and a Holy Day of Obligation: the Assumption of Mary. What is Mary’s Assumption, and how does it differ from Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension? Furthermore, how did the Church come to determine this dogma to be true?
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The Most Blessed Virgin Mary, when the course of her earthly life was completed, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven” (CCC 974).
Mary’s body would have undergone no decay whatsoever, and unlike Jesus who spent three days in hell before His resurrection, Mary gained entrance straight into heaven—body and soul. Mary would not have spent time roaming the earth after being laid in a tomb as Jesus did before ascending to heaven—which also means that there were no witnesses to this doctrine of the Church. In fact, nowhere in Scripture is there any evidence at all that her Assumption took place. There are not even any verses pointing to this event. So how did the teaching on Mary’s Assumption become dogma of the Church?
While there is no scriptural evidence for Mary’s Assumption into heaven, we do have the evidence that comes to us by way of tradition; that is, the evidence that has been passed down to us generation after generation by word of mouth.
Now we must understand, “oral tradition” is not the same as “legend.” Legends that are passed down in our Church make for entertaining stories, but are only meant to teach us lessons, much like Jesus’ parables. Such legends are not necessarily meant to be taken literally, word-for-word. Certainly, some of these legends could have literally taken place, but the likelihood is that often they did not. Why can we say this? Because while indeed our God is a God of miracles, He is not in the business of magic tricks and fantasy. Instant healings we can accept. Fire-breathing dragons . . . likely not.
Sacred oral tradition differs from legend in that what is passed on by word of mouth is sacred truth. In fact, it is the way that Scripture itself was preserved until the story of Jesus was finally recorded on paper. So the early Church would have been meticulous about sorting fact from fiction, inspired by the Holy Spirit to determine what to preserve in print.
If this is the case, though, why did none of the four evangelists record the Assumption of Mary in any of their Gospel accounts?
To understand the answer to this question, we must first understand the reason that Scripture records so little about Mary in the first place. After all, many books since then have been written about Our Blessed Mother. The devotion to Mary throughout the centuries has become so popular and ardent that Catholics have been accused of worshipping her in favor of her Son! But how can this be, when so little was written in the Scriptures about her life on earth?
The truth is, if so little was recorded in the Scriptures about the life of Mary, it is likely for two reasons. The first, of course, is that the Gospels are primarily an account of the life of Jesus, not Mary, and so anything written about her would have been included only insofar as it involved Him. The second reason is likely because Mary herself would have wanted it this way. In her humility, we imagine that she would have instructed Luke and John the Beloved to include nothing about her that would focus attention away from her Son.
Of course, orally, there would have been plenty spoken about Mary. The disciples who knew her would have certainly passed on the stories of the woman they would have honored like no one else—the woman whom John took into his home after Jesus’ earthly death, and whom he would have loved as his very own mother. They would have told the new converts to the Faith about Mary’s humility—how she always took the lowest place and pointed instead to her Son. They would have shared stories about her generosity—how her kitchen was always open to anyone who might stop by unexpectedly. How she even set an extra place at the dinner table each night “just in case.” How Mary always had fresh linens ready and waiting for a weary disciple who needed a place to rest his head for the night—or even a stranger, who had no money and just needed a helping hand.
The disciples would have talked—at length, ironically—about Mary’s mystical silence, and how she kept the things of God in her heart. But they would have also noted that these “things of God” would come out at just the right times—when one needed a word of encouragement here or a piece of advice there. Mary would have been the wisest woman they knew.
They could not have expressed enough how much they loved her. And their words of love would have inspired those who heard and received them to love her too. They inspire us now to love Mary—right down to this very generation.
From this day all generations will call me blessed. (Lk. 1:48)
Is it not strange how much we love Mary? How is this even possible? How can we love someone so much whom we have never met in person and must rely primarily on hearsay to get to know? Because the truth is, “hearsay” is not the only way we get to know Mary. God has granted Mary the singular honor and grace of being in relationship with all His children, just as her Son Jesus is with all of us. How does this grace come to us? There is one specific way: if we want to get to know our Blessed Mother and be in relationship with her, then we must simply strive to love her.
This is the great secret of how the Church Fathers could know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Mary was, in fact, assumed into heaven. They took the evidence of oral tradition, which was that all the apostles except Thomas were with her at the end of her earthly life, and that later it was Thomas who found her tomb empty. They would have pieced this information together with their inherent love for Mary, which certainly must have been great (for who could be graced with greater love for Christ’s mother than the ones anointed to represent her Son as alteri Christi?). Thus they came to the only logical and infallible conclusion about Mary’s Assumption and declared it dogma nearly two thousand years later.
May we receive and embrace the great gift that is Our Blessed Mother, and love and honor her all the more this day.
Author’s Note: Excerpt from: The Safe Haven: Scriptural Reflections for the Heart and Home (Ordinary Time Weeks 15-21). To purchase, visit Amazon or The Catholic Company, where all other volumes currently in print are also available.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
