As reported by Philippine daily Inquirer (August 14, 2004), the Philippines’ top archbishops and bishops gather last August 15, 2004 in Tarlac City to celebrate the Eucharistic and Marian Year as well as pray for peace, national unity and renewal.
As also reported, Bishop Florentino Cinense of Tarlac Diocese said in a telephone interview that the joint celebration was in recognition of the Church’s two pillars: the Eucharist and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He said: “It’s significant because Pope John Paul II call her (the Virgin Mary) the woman of the Eucharist. And the Eucharist, who is Jesus Christ, was born by the Virgin Mary. There are no contradictions of the two events.”
Today we are celebrating the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven and the year 2004 the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) declared as Eucharistic and Marian Year since the international celebration of the Eucharistic Year coincides with the national celebration of the Marian Year. And the year 2004 was declared too by the Pope the celebration of the International Year of the Eucharist starting October 2004.
The Assumption of Mary, taken up by God body and soul into heaven, is the fourth dogma on Virgin Mary, proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in his Munificentissimus Deus in 1950:
“We pronounce, declare and define it to be 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 into heavenly glory… (44-45).
“As the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendor at the right hand of the Son, the immortal King of the Ages,” (40).
Assumption means, “To be taken up” body and soul to heaven. It is not Ascension, like Jesus, done by His own power, but Assumption done by the power of God. It is something God did for her, not something she did for herself. It is a gift of God as a result of Christ’s redemptive power applied to the Blessed Virgin Mary. the dogma says, “The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection.” The Assumption was God’s way of finishing the job he started at Mary’s Immaculate Conception, redeeming her body from the effects of sin as well.
But why is Mary? It is because she was the Mother of Jesus and Jesus did what you and I would have done with our mothers if we would have the power: Jesus did not allow the hands that cared for His to be corrupted and the heart that loved Him so much…. If He did it to Enoch and Elijah, in the Old Testament, why is not to His Mother?
The Blessed Mother died like Jesus but her body was never corrupted, was taken up to heaven and for this reason there are no relics of her body. The dogma doesn’t say she never died. At the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), when bishops from Mediterranean world gathered in Constantinople, Emperor Marcian asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to bring the relics of Mary to Constantinople to be enshrined in the capitol. The patriarch explained to the emperor that there were no relics of Mary in Jerusalem that, “Mary had died in the presence of the apostles; but her tomb, when opened later…. was found empty and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into heaven.
Since we were launching the Eucharistic and Marian Year at the same time last 2004, it is good to reflect on these two great pillars of the Church: the Eucharist by which when we receive this, we receive Jesus, His Body and Blood and soul and divinity and the Blessed Virgin Mary who gave birth to Jesus Christ which is the Eucharist.
There is no secret about the Blessed Virgin Mary is related to the Holy Eucharist. It is very simple: except for the Blessed Virgin, we would not have the Holy Eucharist. As Fr. John Hardon, SJ said that the key to this relationship is the humanity of Jesus Christ. God as God was present in the world from the dawn of creation. The same almighty power by which God brought the world into being is the same almighty power by which He sustains the world in existence and provides for its constant activity.
Fr. Hardon continued that it was from Mary that the Son of God took over human nature. It was from Mary that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity received His humanity. It was through Mary that Jesus Christ, who is God from all eternity, became man, lived visibly on earth in Palestine and is now invisibly on earth in every church and chapel in the Catholic world where the Holy Eucharist is offered, received and reserved. Mary remains the Mother of the Divine Grace, through whom He pours out His blessings on a sinful world. As Pope John Paul II observed in Redemptoris Mater, “Mary guides the faithful to the Eucharist.” The Pope in his message to the 19th Marian Congress in Poland (August 15, 1996) repeated the same message: “Let Mary leads us to the Eucharist.”
So the Assumption of Mary reminds us that our bodies too will be redeemed… we will be in heaven with body and soul too and if in hell we will have body and soul also. The Christian hope is not so much the immortality of the soul, which many pagans affirm but the Resurrection of the Body.
- OR. There is a joke that says the difference between a mirror and a woman. The difference is: the mirror reflects without talking while the woman talks without reflecting. We always make fun of women as lovers of talks, although there are some men who talk more than women.
Today we are celebrating the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. This one is a dogma of our Catholic faith. As a Catholic, we must believe in faith that Mary was assumed into heaven body and soul even if we cannot understand it. And if we don’t like to believe that Mary was assumed into heaven, then that is tantamount to saying that we are no longer Catholics.
What does the Catholic Church actually teach? The Church simply teaches that the end of the earthly life of this woman, she was assumed immediately into heaven, body and soul and united with God.
Assumption was declared or proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in 1950. He said: “By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, we proclaim, declare and define that it is divinely revealed dogma that Mary the Immaculate Mother of God ever virgin when the course of her earthly life ended, was raised body and soul to the glory of heaven.” Her body was never allowed to be decayed and to be corrupted.”
When Pius XII did this declaration, he did not invent a new doctrine, requiring us to believe something that Christians in previous ages had never heard of. Popes and General Councils have power to define doctrines, not create them.
What does this Catholic dogma mean especially to us Christians? Many had already attained that heavenly state. That is what we mean by this dogma. Since she was immune from original sin, her body did not suffer the corruption that is the consequence of that sin. God did not, in the words of Papal definition, allow ‘decay to touch her body.’ Instead, when her time on earth was over, she passed (was assumed) instantly, body and soul to final beatitude.
Assumption is a reminder for us that, we too, shall rise from the dead on the last day. Another one is as a mother….