08.13.24 - The Assumption of Mary
- tmaley
- Aug 16, 2024
- 9 min read
House rules/notes…
Our meeting/classes are In-Person at St. John Neumann Catholic Church 11900 Lawyers Road, Reston, VA 20191 https://saintjn.org/ (usually held downstairs in Room 5), or ONLINE via Zoom (see #2).
To sign up for Zoom notifications and to receive the Meeting Recaps, go to www.meetup.com/catholicbiblestudy and join us! The Zoom Logon is the same every week: Zoom ID: 861 1782 2081 Password: 406952.
After each meeting, I send out Meeting Recaps of what we discussed. Please remember these recaps are unedited and without the pictures. The edited version with pictures will be posted before the next class on the Website – www.CatholicCatacombs.org. Taylor will notify everyone at that time and provide a link.
Questions encouraged. If you have questions, we ask that you keep them on topic and brief. You can ask in the chat box during the class, or email through Meetup.com, or email me at ron@hallagan.net afterwards.
Respectfulness. We will be discussing differences between religions and between Christian denominations, and we agree to be respectful at all times. Protestants especially are our friends and brothers-in-Christ; in fact, I personally owe part of my return to the faith to them!
No politics. It would be easy for us to self-destruct, but that’s not our goal. Our goal is to learn/understand/apply the Bible and our Catholic faith.
Catholic Prayer & Fellowship. Are you interested in praying the rosary, etc. with other Catholics during the week? Follow fellow member Jason Goldberg at https://www.meetup.com/online-catholic-prayer-fellowship-and-spirituality/. Daily/weekly prayer is saintly!
“The Chosen” TV series. All of us seek a relationship with Jesus Christ, which is not always easy. It can help if we have seen and heard Him. The Chosen captures Jesus better than any show I have ever seen. There are four seasons out now. Highly recommended.
RSVP Reminder: Please RSVP whether you are attending the meeting or just reading the Recaps afterwards. The more RSVPs, the more Meetup will give exposure to “Catholic Bible Study” – a good thing!
Bible Study Format: Each week of the month has a repeating topic, as noted below.
Each meeting: 5 min greet/prayer, 10 min Catholic exegesis, 15 min Gospel, 30 min main topic.
Week 1: Gospel Week
Week 2: Bible Week (Gen to Rev): We are in the 2nd Book of Kings.
Week 3: Survey Topics Voted on by Members:
x 1) Great Women in the Bible 2) Book of Revelation 3) Fathers, Heresies, Church Councils 4) Martin Luther & The Reformation (heresies bring greater precision into the faith by its responses – Ratz)
Week 4: Apologetics (=Defense of the Faith)… includes member questions:
35% Why does God allow suffering?
35% What should our response be to those who ask us about priestly sex abuse?
35% Explain Mother Teresa’s “Dark Night of the Soul.”
28% What is Tradition? Is Tradition equal to Scripture in importance? (2Thes2:15)
28% What about the atheist who leads a good life? Can I be a person be good apart from God?
21% Explain what happens to animals after they die. Will we see our pets?
14% Was Emperor Constantine good or bad? Was he a Christian? How was the Church affected?
Please explain Limbo.
Reader?
Catholic Prayer & Fellowship. Are you interested in praying the rosary, etc. with other Catholics during the week? Follow fellow member Jason Goldberg at https://www.meetup.com/online-catholic-prayer-fellowship-and-spirituality/. Daily/weekly prayer is saintly!
Upcoming major holy days in the Liturgy of the Church
August 15 – Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
All Saints Day (Nov 1)
Opening Prayer
Lord Jesus, we ask you to bless all of us who have come here tonight to immerse ourselves in the study of your Word.
Give us the light of your wisdom and we celebrate and learn of the Assumption of your Blessed mother, Mary, and study the events of Israel after the life of your servant, King Solomon.
And as you taught us to pray together:
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily Bread
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Today
The Assumption of the Blessed Mary
Quote of the Week:
“Do whatever he tells you”
Mary at the wedding at Cana, John 2:5
Apologetics word of the week:
Original Sin is probably not the best name to describe what it is, mainly because it is not a personal sin. It’s a reality we inherited, kind of like inheriting our four limbs, the desire for knowledge, and a fear of death. The fall of man is selfish condition that is part of our shared humanity, and we can’t point to our first parents any more than we can point to our grandparents or great grandparents for the bad decisions we make now. The bigger point is that we are all in this together, and that is why Jesus teaches that love, forgiveness, and unity are the solutions to our ills.
Technically speaking, the decision to listen to the serpent and go our own way (depart from God) caused a loss of what theologians call sanctifying grace, which was our intimate connection to God and our access to Heaven. At that point our physical bodies would die off and our then souls would follow the devil, just as we had chosen.
Fortunately, God foresaw this disaster coming and proceeded with humans anyway, for He had a plan that would give humans a second chance to follow Him rather than Satan, in a way that would show the spectacular love of God. So regardless of how one feels about the fairness of the fall, we have all been given the opportunity to choose again.
However, if however God was going to pull this off, He had to retain perfect justice and truth in the process. In other words, He just can’t cancel out our choices because then he violates our free will. He can’t wipe away our offenses without some kind of offsetting payment on our part. Think of a stolen car. The act of thievery also requires the thief to return the car and pay damages. It would make no sense to forgive the thief but let him keep the car.
So then, what things must be accomplished to give humans another chance?
Find a way to give us back sanctifying grace, while somehow maintaining both our freedom and perfect justice.
Provide humans with ongoing help to stay on the path until they reach Heaven.
How were these solved?
Find a way to give us back sanctifying grace, while somehow maintaining both our freedom and perfect justice
Baptism restores sanctifying grace and our freedom to choose God again.
God maintains the scales of justice by becoming a man and making payment for our sins.
Provide humans with ongoing help to stay on the path until they reach Heaven.
Forgiveness is now available for the asking.
Grace (supernatural blessings/strength) is offered to us in multiple ways, particularly in the sacraments.
How was Mary treated differently regarding all of this?
Since God foreknew Mary would accept His request to bear the Christ child, she was saved at her birth so that she could be bear His Son without the condition of Original Sin. In other words, she was born with sanctifying grace. This is what is referred to as the Immaculate Conception – she was conceived with sanctifying grace (without Original Sin). This is what is meant when the Angel Gabriel first said to Mary, “Hail Mary, full of grace!” Mary already had the sanctifying grace she needed to be the mother of Jesus.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Assumption of Mary – originally called “The Dormition” (falling asleep), was held by the Church from the beginning of Christianity and says that at the end of her life on earth Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven.
This does not mean that Mary "ascended" into heaven. Only Christ, by his own power, ascended into heaven. Mary was assumed – or taken up – into heaven by God. She did not do it under her own power.
Was such an act of God without precedent?
No. Enoch (Gen 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) were also taken up bodily into Heaven.
The Dormition/Assumption was part of standard Christian belief for the first 1500 years since Mary walked the earth.
It was challenged for the first time after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. I said “after” because even the first and most famous Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, was a strong believer in the Assumption of Mary.
“For Martin Luther, Mary's Assumption was an understood fact, as his homily of 1522 indicates, in spite of the fact that Mary's Assumption is not expressly reported in Sacred Scripture. For the Protestant reformer, there was no reason to doubt about the Assumption of the Virgin into heavenly glory: "Indeed, no Christian doubts that the most worthy Mother of the Lord lives with her beloved Son in heavenly joy." (Marienlexikon, vol 3, 200)
The rejection of Mary’s Assumption came as Protestantism began splintering into separate groups, which was in the first 10 years of the Reformation.
What is our answer to the question of why the Assumption is not explicitly written in Scripture?
First, and most obvious, is that Mary was probably still alive when most of the NT was being written. The best estimate for her death is in the AD 60s, possibly in Jerusalem but more likely in Ephesus, where John resided.
The second reason would be the same reason that Mary would give us: that the Gospel is about her Son, not her. Everything Mary ever said and did during her life (and in visitations afterwards) always points us in the direction of her Son.
Where did this happen?
It is agreed upon that Mary completed her life in either in Jerusalem or Ephesus. Of course, neither those cities claimed her remains (because there were no bones to claim). It is worth noting that, as important as tombs and relics of the saints were (and still are), here was the most highly regarded saint who ever lived, but there have never been any records of her bodily remains being venerated anywhere.
As we mentioned in explaining Mary’s Immaculate Conception, since Mary received sanctifying grace at birth, she did not have the effects of the Fall, therefore it makes sense that her body would not decompose on earth but rather be taken to Heaven. Considering that Enoch and Elijah were taken up bodily by God, it should not incur the slightest difficulty to think that Jesus would do the same for his own mother who brought him into the world, raised him, and was at his side through his death and resurrection.
Are there other early references to support this tradition?
Yes, but also remember that the Assumption was like many other Apostolic traditions of the Church that were only defined and written down a) after Christian persecutions finally ended in 313 AD, and b) when it became necessary to set a doctrine down in writing because of rising heresies that challenged the teachings of the Apostles. This is why defining the books of the Bible or explaining the Trinity weren’t codified by the Church until the mid-300s.
As for the Assumption, we have several 2nd and 3rd century writings on what the early Christians believed. One is St. Epiphanius, the great bishop and defender of orthodoxy, who in 350 AD gives us key insights into the antiquity of the Assumption.
There are also a number of stories about Mary’s end of her life on earth, some saying she was taken up bodily while still alive, some saying she was taken up just after dying. The Church claims no certainty about the specifics because we don’t know, but the integrity of the Assumption is not impaired either way. Her Assumption was either right before or after her death, though the nearly universal opinion is that she did die. As Pope Pius XII definitively stated in Munificentissimus Deus (1950) that Mary, "after the completion of her earthly life was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven" (note the silence regarding her death).
Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin
Below is one example of early writings from the Eastern Church that tells of Mary's passing from this life to the next. The text, more commonly known as Transitus (passing on, crossing over) Mariae, tells of Mary's homegoing in some detail:
In the presence of the apostles gathered around her bed, also in the presence of her divine Son and many angels, Mary died and her soul, rose to heaven, accompanied by Christ and the angels. Her body was buried by the disciples. Difficulties developed among certain of the Jews who wished to dispose of her body. Various types of miracles occurred to convince them to honor Mary's body. On the third day, Christ returned, and Mary was reunited with her body. Accompanied by singing angels, Christ brought Mary to paradise.
As we have noted, Mary's story does not end with her Assumption. After being assumed, Mary was crowned Queen of Heaven (Rev 12, the 5th glorious mystery) and remained active in the service of her Son for the life of the Church. Many Christians believe that she has manifested her concern in visible appearances and miraculous cures. Some of these events are commemorated in the Church’s liturgical calendar, such as Our Lady of Fatima on May 13, Our Lady of Lourdes on February 11, Protection of Mary on October 1, and Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.
CLOSING PRAYER
Hail, holy Queen,
Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve.
To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us,
And after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!
Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Amen.
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