Assumption Of Our Lady -- UPDATES

Pope Benedict XVI: Praising Mary is a response to Divine Prophecy

The Assumption of Mary is a difficult matter, from the Protestant point of view, because the traces and hints in Scripture are not easily found, unless you assume that they are there to be found, which somewhat defeats the purpose of using Scripture to convince anyone else. Pius XII said only that the dogma “is in wonderful accord with those divine truths given us in Holy Scripture” and that “various testimonies, indications and signs of this common belief of the Church are evident from remote times down through the course of the centuries.”

As an example of this wonderful accord, he sees the teaching as implicit in Mary as the New Eve. Because she “is most intimately associated” with Jesus, the New Adam, in the struggle against “the infernal foe,” their shared struggle “should be brought to a close by the glorification of her virginal body, for the same Apostle [Paul] says: ‘When this mortal thing hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.’”

As ever Pat Gohn has A Word in Season:

Through Mary we see our own true destiny played out through her Assumption whereby she was assumed (or taken up) into heaven at the end of her earthly life, body and soul.

The Assumption is a singular grace afforded to Mary. It is related to her Immaculate Conception; she is the first person to be saved by Jesus. Mary did not undergo corruption at the end of her life, for she was sinless throughout it.

In this doctrine of the Assumption, the Church meets the despair of the world . . .

She affirms the beauty of life against death. When wars, sex, and sin multiply the discords of men, and death threatened on every side, the Church bids us lift up our hearts to the life that that has the immortality of the Life that nourished it . . .

Eat the food of earth and one dies; eat the Eucharist and one lives eternally. She who is the mother of the Eucharist, escapes the decomposition of death. (The World’s First Love, Fulton J. Sheen)

Why the Assumption of Mary began in the Garden of Eden

Deacon Greg on Mary as “God’s original plan for humanity”:

If Mary does indeed show us ‘God’s original plan for humanity,’ so does her glorious Assumption. In the Assumption, preserved forever before the face of God, freed from the corruption of the grave, Mary not only fulfills her great destiny – but also offers us a beautiful glimpse of our own. This is what God wants for us. This is what He dreams for us. This is His desire and design for the world.

The Assumption offers us that promise – and that hope.

UPDATES: More from around the ‘sphere:

Sr. Lisa Marie Doty: Have Courage in Prayer

Dwight Longenecker: Trampling the Serpent

Brandon Vogt: The Assumption; Bringing Mary Close

Concord Pastor; Assumption of Bertha Huber

The Balloon Rosary

The Death of the Blessed Virgin

Related: Fun with Microchimerism; Assumptions are not just for prophets, you know!