The Assumption Of Mary

[Fidei Defensor]

New thread for a new topic.

 

It has been suggested that the Assumption is somehow "peripheral" to the faith and not an important dogma. I disagree.

 

I believe that the Assumption is the logical conclusion to Mary's life on earth being that she was the most holy and undefiled vessel for the veiling of the Godhead in human flesh.  She cared for God as a baby, watched him grow up, and through the consequence of her acceptance of the will of God, watched her beautiful Son die for all of human kind's sake.  I believe that having to go through that, being assumed into heaven and crowned as the Queen of Heaven is a precious and well deserved divine gift.

 

The belief in the Assumption speaks to our understanding of the very woman who brought us God-made-man and her exalted place in creation.

[Credo in Deum]

New thread for a new topic.

It has been suggested that the Assumption is somehow "peripheral" to the faith and not an important dogma. I disagree.

I believe that the Assumption is the logical conclusion to Mary's life on earth being that she was the most holy and undefiled vessel for the veiling of the Godhead in human flesh. She cared for God as a baby, watched him grow up, and through the consequence of her acceptance of the will of God, watched her beautiful Son die for all of human kind's sake. I believe that having to go through that, being assumed into heaven and crowned as the Queen of Heaven is a precious and well deserved divine gift.

The belief in the Assumption speaks to our understanding of the very woman who brought us God-made-man and her exalted place in creation.

I agree. I also think it is fitting that Mary was assumed into heaven. Like the Old Testament Ark, Mary's body and soul disappeared from the face of the earth. She being the Ark of the New Testament is now in her heavenly home with her Son.

[Selah]

I believe that she was assumed, but I also believe in the Dormition. The Mother of God died ("fell asleep") and three days later was assumed, body and soul, into heaven. St. Thomas and other disciples found her grave empty, and in her place, roses.

[Benedictus]

New thread for a new topic.

 

It has been suggested that the Assumption is somehow "peripheral" to the faith and not an important dogma. I disagree.

 

I believe that the Assumption is the logical conclusion to Mary's life on earth being that she was the most holy and undefiled vessel for the veiling of the Godhead in human flesh.  She cared for God as a baby, watched him grow up, and through the consequence of her acceptance of the will of God, watched her beautiful Son die for all of human kind's sake.  I believe that having to go through that, being assumed into heaven and crowned as the Queen of Heaven is a precious and well deserved divine gift.

 

The belief in the Assumption speaks to our understanding of the very woman who brought us God-made-man and her exalted place in creation.

 

I'd agree Tardis. I think this issue comes about, well I think at least partially, because there has been a long protestant tradition of not even dealing with Mary, or relegating her to a corner as not being very significant. This has the result of thinking beliefs about her aren't very important, even among some Catholics.

[Fidei Defensor]

Some excerpts from the Apostolic Constitution defining the dogma of the Assumption:
 

5. Now God has willed that the Blessed Virgin Mary should be exempted from this general rule. She, by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.

17. In the liturgical books which deal with the feast either of the dormition or of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin there are expressions that agree in testifying that, when the Virgin Mother of God passed from this earthly exile to heaven, what happened to her sacred body was, by the decree of divine Providence, in keeping with the dignity of the Mother of the Word Incarnate, and with the other privileges she had been accorded. Thus, to cite an illustrious example, this is set forth in that sacramentary which Adrian I, our predecessor of immortal memory, sent to the Emperor Charlemagne. These words are found in this volume: "Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, who has begotten your Son our Lord incarnate from herself."

21. Thus St. John Damascene, an outstanding herald of this traditional truth, spoke out with powerful eloquence when he compared the bodily Assumption of the loving Mother of God with her other prerogatives and privileges. "It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father. It was fitting that God's Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God."

27. Moreover, the scholastic Doctors have recognized the Assumption of the Virgin Mother of God as something signified, not only in various figures of the Old Testament, but also in that woman clothed with the sun whom John the Apostle contemplated on the Island of Patmos.(24) Similarly they have given special attention to these words of the New Testament: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women,"(25) since they saw, in the mystery of the Assumption, the fulfillment of that most perfect grace granted to the Blessed Virgin and the special blessing that countered the curse of Eve.

40. Hence the revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination,(47) immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences, finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages.