The Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary

The Assumption of our Lady has been a belief in the Catholic Church since the Apostolic Times. It is a belief that the Most Virgin Mary, chosen to be the Mother of our Savior Lord Jesus, had been taken to heaven, soul and body. Mary had ‘slept in the Lord’  in the presence of the apostles; and the Apostles buried her body with due respect. But her tomb, when opened later , was found empty ; and so the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up into heaven.

In the words of St.John Damascene of 8th Century, “Although She was duly buried, the body did not remain in the state of death, neither was it dissolved by decay. She was transferred to her heavenly home“.

Mother Mary had the fulness of grace from her first moment of her life, through her Immaculate Conception (Feast- Dec.8th). All through her life, she lived a life completely undefiled by sin and as the Archangel Gabriel addressed her at Annunciation, she was ‘full of Grace’.

God did not create humans to die. “God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity, but through devil‘s envy death entered the world” (Wis. 2.23,24). So death is the consequence of sin. Mother Mary who was preserved from the original sin at conception and who did not commit any sin in her life, was freed from the consequence of sin.

“The Assumption completes God’s work in her since it was not fitting that the flesh that had given life to God himself should ever undergo corruption. The Assumption is God’s crowning of His work as Mary ends her earthly life and enters eternity. The feast turns our eyes in that direction, where we will follow when our earthly life is over.“ (EWTN.COM)

On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII, exercising papal infallibility, declared in Munificientissimus Deus that it is a dogma of the Church “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.” As a dogma, the Assumption is a required belief of all Catholics; anyone who publicly dissents from the dogma, Pope Pius XII declared, “has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.”

Prayer: Mary, our Mother assumed into heaven, help us to live a sinless and holy life so that we may follow you into heaven.

“Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God”(Jn.3.21). “Whoever says, “I am in the light”, while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling” (I Jn. 2.9, 10). So when we live God’s word, we share the light of God. And only then can we bring forth the fruits of the light which consist in  goodness, righteousness and truth. The Psalmist, king David, was convinced that God’s word is ‘a lamp to his feet and light to his path’ because he has experienced that it is the ‘unfolding of God’s words that gives light’ (Ps. 119.105, 130). Nowadays many do not want to live God’s word and hence are not able to experience the light of the Lord. “There are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways and do not stay in its paths” (Job. 24.13).

The mission of Jesus is entrusted to every disciple : ‘To be the light of the world.’ (Mt.5.14). “So the Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts. 13.47). Many people around us are groping in the darkness of sin, doubt and confusion. Like St. Paul, let us be aware of this mission, that the Lord is sending us “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Jesus” (Acts. 26. 18). When we are in the light of the Lord, we can be “a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of the infants” (Rom. 2.19).The Lord is inviting all of us, as He invited Bl. Mother Theresa: “Come, be my light”.