Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Assumption is the Church’s faith that Mary, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven. Pope Pius XII defined this as a dogma on November 1, 1950, in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus. The definition was not a new idea invented in 1950. It gathered a belief already visible in the ancient liturgies of East and West, in the dormition sermons of the Fathers, and in the unbroken refusal of the Church to point to a grave and say: her body is here. The definition deliberately does not settle whether Mary died before she was assumed. The Eastern word is Dormition, falling asleep. The Latin definition says “having completed the course of her earthly life,” and stops there.

The dogma is Christological. Mary’s body is assumed because of her union with her Son. She is the first to share, in the fullness of her person, the bodily glory that Christ promised to all who are his. The Assumption is not an escape from the resurrection of the dead. It is the resurrection of the dead begun in the woman who bore the Risen One. Pius XII is explicit that this privilege flows from the Immaculate Conception and from her place in the mystery of the Incarnation. A Catholic who celebrates August 15 without Christmas and Easter has the feast upside down.

August 15 has been the date in the West for many centuries, corresponding to the Eastern feast of the Dormition. It is a solemnity and, in the United States, a holy day of obligation. When it falls on a Saturday or a Monday, the American bishops abrogate the obligation to attend Mass, so that the precept is not piled against the Sunday. The Mass is still the Mass of the Assumption. Christmas and the Immaculate Conception are not covered by that abrogation. The vestments are white. The Gloria and the Creed are said. The preface of the Assumption praises God because the Virgin Mother of God was taken up into heaven.

Revelation 12, the woman clothed with the sun, is read at the Mass during the day. The Church has long heard this vision as more than a private biography of Mary. The woman is also the people of God, and the child is the Messiah. Using the text at this solemnity does not flatten it into a simple portrait. It says that Mary’s destiny and the Church’s destiny are one story. The Gospel is Luke’s account of the visitation and the Magnificat, or the shorter form. Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord. The Assumption is that magnification completed in the body.

A vigil Mass is provided, with its own readings, including the Gospel of Martha and Mary and “the better part,” heard in a Marian key. The Mass during the day uses Revelation 12, the reading from 1 Corinthians 15 on Christ as the firstfruits of the dead, and the Magnificat. 1 Corinthians 15 is the key. If there is no resurrection of Christ, there is no Assumption. Mary’s privilege is a fruit of his.