Feast of the Assumption

"De hemelvaart van Maria", Rubens, circa 1626

Today is the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which commemorates the death of Mary and her bodily Assumption into heaven before her body could begin to decay.

Because it signifies Mary’s passing into eternal life, it’s considered one of the most important Marian feasts and is a holy day of obligation and Catholics must attend Mass that day.

Catholics are usually brought closest to the celebration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary through the Glorious mysteries of the Rosary, said Fr. Brian Kane, pastor of St. James Parish in Mead and superintendent of Bishop Neumann Jr./Sr. High School in Wahoo. It’s customary to pray for a deeper devotion to Our Lady when meditating on the Assumption, the fourth Glorious mystery, he said.

“This devotion to Mary is especially important, as we pray in the Hail Mary, at the ‘hour of our death,’” he said. “Asking Mary to help us to have a holy death is a special way of deepening our devotion to Mary and the Assumption.”

Mary’s life on earth came to a conclusion with her body and soul being assumed into heaven …. a fitting end to her “fiat” or “yes” to the will of God, Fr. Kane said.

“Our goal in life is the same, that we may dwell forever in the house of the Lord,” he said. “Mary’s Assumption gives us hope for a holy death and eternal life in heaven.

“If you find yourself at the bedside of a loved one who is near death, don’t be afraid to ask Mary for the gift of a happy death. She will bring that holy request to her son, Jesus,” Fr. Kane said. 

The Feast of the Assumption is a very old feast of the church, celebrated universally by the sixth century. It was originally celebrated in the East, where it is known as the Feast of the Dormition, a word meaning “the falling asleep.”

The earliest printed reference to the belief that Mary's body was assumed into heaven dates from the fourth century, in a document titled “The Falling Asleep of the Holy Mother of God.” It’s written in the voice of the Apostle John, to whom Christ on the cross had entrusted the care of his mother, and recounts the death, laying in the tomb and assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Tradition variously places Mary's death at Jerusalem or at Ephesus, where John was living.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven at the end of her earthly life is a defined dogma of the Catholic Church. On Nov. 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII, exercising papal infallibility, declared in “Munificentissimus 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 declared, “has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic faith.”

Pope Pius XII, in the text explaining his definition of the dogma of the Assumption, refers repeatedly to the Blessed Virgin's death before her Assumption, and the consistent tradition in both the East and the West holds that Mary did die before she was assumed into heaven. Because the definition of the Assumption is silent on this question, however, Catholics can legitimately believe that Mary did not die before the Assumption.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it states: “Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.” 

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her son’s resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians.

Some information from catholicism.about.com.