The term “assumption” means: to be raised to heaven, by a power that does not belong first to the Virgin. However, this power belongs to him by virtue of the quality of the glorified bodies. It is therefore a movement whose starting point is the presence of the body on earth, and whose end is the presence of the body united to the soul in heaven.
The question that covers the end of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary – death, or simply sleep – will not be examined here. Two opinions are admitted, and the Magisterium has not decided on this point.
The tradition is summed up beautifully by Pope Pius XII in the bull that defines the dogma.
The testimony of the Church Fathers
St. Gregory of Tours: “And behold, the Lord stood again with them; and, the sacred body [of the Virgin] having been received, he commanded her to be carried away in a cloud to paradise: where now, reunited with her soul, Mary rejoices with the elect of the Lord, and is the enjoyment of the good of an eternity which will never end.
Modest of Jerusalem: “Christ raised her from the dead and raised her up beside him, in a place known only to him.
Saint John Damascene also bore witness to the Assumption of the Virgin.
The Magisterium
Pope Pius XII declared in the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus: “We pronounce, declare and define as a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul in celestial glory. Dz. 2333. It is neither the fact of the death nor the circumstances.
He is of faith that the Virgin, at the end of her earthly life, was taken up to heaven body and soul.
The Fathers and theologians show the high propriety of this mystery
The dignity of the Mother of God is the foundation of all the privileges of the Virgin; it also explains the Assumption.
The fullness of grace and the immaculate conception explain that the Mother of God was exempted from the corruption of the tomb: exempted from the curse of Eve.
This singular participation in the Redemption demands a singular participation in the fruits of the Redemption. The victory of the Immaculata over sin must be complete. But death is the price of sin. Thus, if the Virgin, with Christ, won a complete victory over sin, this victory must include the triumph over death: at the very least, the anticipated resurrection.
The filial piety of Jesus also calls for a favor of this nature, just as it calls for a special appearance of the risen Jesus to Mary to whom he appeared on Easter night.
If Our Lady did not really live in heaven, Jesus could not really be called the Son of Mary, since his Mother is no longer there, death having dissolved nature and the person as human. It is a human person who is the end of the temporal filiation of Jesus.
Pius XII, when considering the definition of dogma, used the principle of the granting of privileges: one must suppose the most perfect in the Blessed Virgin. Thus, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven crowns her privileges with a singular purity.
Conceived without sin and in a state of grace, virginally conceiving the Son of God, and living free from the degradation of the tomb, the Virgin thus eluded all occasions of corruption, guilty or not, which have struck the human race from the beginning. . peach.
