Why I'm "No" on the Rapture, But "Yes" on Mary's Assumption

In my last post I shared my reasons for giving up belief in the Rapture.  Introduced to it by author Hal Lindsey, and confirmed in it during my time in a non-denominational church, study brought me to the conclusion that it was not a legitimate element of Christian Faith. Despite its popularity among Christians in the U.S., not only did it have no basis in Scripture, but it directly contradicted what Christianity has always taught - that in the last days, the Church will share Christ's Passion in an intense way, and then at His return, His Resurrection.

The wild thing is, at the same time that I believed so whole-heartedly in the Rapture, I also argued against the Catholic belief that Mary was assumed into heaven.  Do you see the irony?  I was absolutely convinced that Jesus was going to raise the entire Church up into heaven, but totally opposed to the Catholic dogma that Jesus had already done so for His Mother!

My change of heart occurred long before I came to have a positive view of the Catholic Tradition regarding Mary's assumption.  My thought process went something like this:  

• The Bible does not say that Mary wasn't assumed into heaven.

• The Old Testament does speak of two other people having been assumed, Enoch (Gen. 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11-12).If it was true for them, then couldn't it be true of Mary?

• Matthew's Gospel states that at the moment of Jesus' death, "The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. (Mt. 27:52-53).  Wasn't it reasonable to believe that after these appearances they too were assumed into heaven?  Again, if it was true for them, then why not for Mary?

• If the assumption occurred at the end of her life, then wouldn’t portions of the New Testament already have been written? Did the Bible have to explicitly say it for the event to have occurred?

• There are tons of things not explicitly recorded in the Bible; the Holy Spirit moved John to end his Gospel with that very thought, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (Jn. 21:25)

• The Assumption coincides with, dovetails into, Scripture; whereas a pre-Tribulation Rapture is in contradiction to the overall picture of the last days painted by the New Testament.

• Belief in Mary's assumption is witnessed to in writing prior to 400 A.D. (although it claims to go back to the apostles), while the Rapture does not make an appearance until 1850.  

• The Assumption squares with the Christian reality that glory follows suffering (Mary's share in Jesus' Resurrection came only after she shared in His suffering upon the Cross [Lk.2:35; Jn.19:25-37].)  The Rapture on the other hand, holds out a false expectation regarding freedom from suffering and persecution.

Catholics and Orthodox Christians have of course always said that the Christian Faith was not be limited to those things explicitly stated in Scripture.  (No legitimate point of belief could ever contradict Scripture, but there is not a requirement that it be explicitly stated in Scripture either.)   

If you, however, object to Mary's assumption because you are a "Bible-only" Christian, then you really ought to take a second look at John's vision in the Book of Revelation.  And as you read, please keep in mind how the Gospel of Luke's identified Mary with the Ark of the Covenant (compare Luke 1:39-45,56 with 2 Samuel 6:2-3,6-12,16) and how in the Gospel of John, Jesus always addressed His Mother as "Woman" (Jn.2:1-5; 19:25-27):

"Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon…the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne ... " (Revelation 11:19-12:5)

Something to consider. Catholics do not appeal to any particular verse of Scripture as a proof text for the dogma of the Assumption; but the above verses certainly do not hurt their case! As I looked more into the foundations of Catholic belief in the Assumption, I discovered that it had a much more ancient pedigree than whatone could find for the Rapture.Once Constantine became Emperor and Christianity was no longer a persecuted sect, Christians were able to erect churches over the sites sacred to them (such as the Holy Sepulchre in 336 A.D.). These sites had been preserved in the local church's memory throughout the centuries. One of the sites, close to Mount Zion where the first Christian community had lived, had always been reverenced as place of Mary's Dormition ("falling asleep). It was not the place where Mary's body resided however - only the place where it had temporarily rested before Mary was raised body and soul into heaven.   

Although different local churches could point to the tombs of the Apostles and martyrs and boast of having their relics (bodies), there was never any such claim made in regard to Mary.  Had their been a body, the early Church would have cherished it.  But instead of a body we have this memory, this witness, from the time of the apostles, ingrained within Christians in and around Jerusalem.  Just a little research on the web can provide early witnesses:

"If therefore it might come to pass before the power of your grace, it has appeared right to us your servants that, as you, having overcome death does reign in glory, so you should raise up the body of your mother and take her with you, rejoicing into heaven. Then said the Savior [Jesus]: 'Be it done according to your will" (Pseudo-Melito The Passing of the Virgin 16:2-17; 300 AD). 

"Therefore the Virgin is immortal to this day, seeing that he who had dwelt in her transported her to the regions of her assumption" (Timothy of Jerusalem Homily on Simeon and Anna; 400 AD).

"And from that time forth all knew that the spotless and precious body had been transferred to paradise" (John the Theologian, The Falling Asleep of Mary; 400 AD) 

"The Apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb; and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; and the holy body having been received, He commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise: where now, rejoined to the soul, [Mary] rejoices with the Lord's chosen ones..." (Gregory of Tours, Eight Books of Miracles, 1:4; 575-593 A.D.)

 St. John Damascene, living in the desert outside Jerusalem in the early 700's, gave the same testimony:

"In the Holy and divinely-inspired Scriptures no mention is made of anything concerning the end of Mary the Holy Mother of God; but we have received from ancient and most truthful tradition ... the Apostles ... opened the coffin.  And they were unable anywhere to find her most lauded body ... Struck by the wonder of the mystery they could only think that He who had been pleased to become incarnate from her in His own Person and to become Man and to be born in the flesh, God the Word, the Lord of Glory ... was pleased even after her departure from life to honor her immaculate and undefiled body with incorruption and with translation prior to the common and universal resurrection." (Second Homily on the Dormition of Mary, c.715 A.D.)

The celebration of Mary's Dormition in the liturgy was first recorded in Palestine in the late 400's and was taken up throughout the Eastern Church and then the West throughout the 500's.  

In the end, I see the Assumption's credibility as standing head-and-shoulders above the Rapture's:

And thus, I was forced to change my tune.  Which is good because on top of everything I have already shared, in 1950 Pope Pius XII used the power of the keys to definitively state that Mary's assumption is a legitimate point of the Faith that has come to us from the Apostles.  To neglect it is forego knowledge of one of the "many other things" that Jesus did that were not written down in Scripture (Jn. 21:25), but have been preserved within the living memory of His Church.  And that Church is, in the words of Scripture, "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).

Crushing the Serpent's Head - It's All Pregnancy Weight

Many of my recent posts have looked at Mary's appearance at Guadalupe in the light of Scripture.  An interesting piece of data that emerged in my research: in the Nahuatl language, in which our Lady asked to be known as "Holy Mary of Guadalupe," there are no "g" or "d' sounds.  It has led to speculation that Mary may have said something similiar to "Guadalupe," a word that the Spanish bishop, to whom the report was given, mistook for Guadalupe (a Marian shrine in his Spanish homeland).  It has led to the speculation that Mary referred to herself as Quatlasupe, "one who crushes the serpent."

That designation would be yet another point of connection between Guadalupe, Revelation 12, and the connected passage in Genesis 3:15.  The Genesis passage, as noted previously, is known as the protoevangelion, or "first gospel."  In it God addressed the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and hers.  He will crush your head while you strike at his heel."  In Genesis it's clearly the seed, the Son of the woman, who crushes the serpent's head; so what is with all the Catholic art work showing Mary standing on the serpent's head ... and her possible reference to herself as Quatlasupe?

The Douay-Rheims, a popular, older Bible translation among Catholics, rendered Gen.3:15 as "she will crush your head, while you strike at her heel."  According to Jimmy Akin, the Douay's translators followed a manuscript variant found in many early Fathers and some editions of the Vulgate (although not in Jerome's original Vulgate translation).  The modern translations we are familiar - where the woman's offspring, Jesus crushes the serpent's head - are faithful to the original Hebrew.

So again, what's up with images of Mary crushing the serpent's

head?  Isn't that theologically inaccurate, applying to Mary what should only be applied to Jesus?  If it is inaccurate, then why would the Church grant approval to the 1830 Marian apparition at the Rue de Bac, where Mary appeared to St. Catherine Laboure, crushing the head of the serpent?  (Granted, Church approval doesn't say you must believe it; but it does guarantee that there is nothing harmful in the apparition, nothing at odds with the Faith handed on by the Apostles.)

A simple thought occurred to me the other day as I was preparing a talk on Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I was looking at our Lady, clearly pregnant with the Lord Jesus, thinking about how Mary's appearance and image on the Tilma dealt a death-blow to the Serpent in the New World, when it struck me - it was pregnancy weight, that's how "Mary" could be represented crushing the Serpent's head.  The weight that crushes the Serpent beneath Mary's feet is the weight of her Son's glory.  It's all pregnancy weight!

This goes right back to the gospels.  Look at the authority Jesus granted to His seventy-two disciples, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you" (Lk 10:19).  We read of it in John's first epistle too, "He that is in you is greater than he [Satan] who is in the world" (1 Jn 4:4).  Jesus was there within His Mother, the Ark of the New Covenant, crushing the enemy's head beneath her just as He decapitated the idol of Dagon before the Ark of the Old Covenant!

Jesus is within His Church, fighting the ancient serpent.  And He was clearly within His Mother, the Church's preeminent member and icon.  Stay pregnant my friends! (Mt 12:50)

O Jesus living in Mary, 
come and live in Thy servants,
in the Spirit of Thy holiness,
in the fullness of Thy might, 
in the truth of Thy virtues,
in the perfection of Thy ways,
in the communion of Thy mysteries,
subdue every hostile power
in Thy Spirit, for the glory of the Father.  
Amen.

The Woman is the Ark

"Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery." (Rev. 11:19 - 12:2)

I do not believe it to be coincidental that John's vision moved directly from the Ark to the Woman.  Both are images of the Virgin Mary.

Now the Ark was the holiest object under the Old Covenant.  It was the golden chest that contained the Tablets of the Ten Commandments, the staff of Aaron (the first high priest), and sample of the "heavenly bread," manna, the Israelites ate in the desert.  It was God's earthly throne; the Lord was said to sit enthroned upon the cherubim atop the Ark.  When Israel's priests carried the Ark into the Jordan River it parted, just as the waters of the Red Sea had, allowing the Israelites to enter the Promised Land. After it was carried in procession for seven days around the city of Jericho, the city's walls collapsed.  

In the New Testament, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, he told her,"the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God (Lk 1:35).  "Overshadow" - it was the same term used to describe God's coming to dwell in the Tabernacle and Temple when the Ark was placed in their Holy of Holies.

It's fascinating to see how Luke developed this insight in his telling of Mary's visit to her kinswoman Elizabeth.  Allow me to set it next to the Old Testament's account of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant to his newly won capital, Jerusalem.


The Ark was a type, a prophetic symbol, of the Virgin Mary.  The original Ark contained the Ten Commandments, high priest's staff, and manna; but Mary's womb contained Jesus - the Word of the Father, our great High Priest, and the true "Bread of Life."  Mary's lap was the only throne our Lord knew during His earthly life!  The holiness of the Ark, the way it was completely set apart for the service of God (note above how Uzzah died simply from touching it), prophesied the holiness of Our Lady.

Recall how the angel Gabriel began his message to Mary, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!...Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God” (Luke 1:28,30). “Full of grace,” or “O favored one,” in some versions of the Bible, is a translation of the Greek term “Kechari-tomene.” It refers to an absolute plentitude of grace, Mary “‛has been’ and ‘is now’ filled with divine life.”  There was never a moment of separation between she and God. This belief is what Catholics mean when they speak of her “immaculate conception.”

Mary, like all of us, had to be saved from sin.  She herself said, “my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:47). She was saved from sin – only the manner differs. 

Jesus' offering to the Father cuts forwards and backward in time; He is the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (1 Pet 1:19-20). His sacrifice is the source of salvation for people from the beginning of history all the way through its end (Heb 9:28; Rev 13:8; 1 Pet 3:19-20). You and I received God's grace into our souls after we had already contracted original sin; but in Mary's case, the fruits of Jesus’ victory were applied at conception, saving her from ever contracting original sin. Now, if John the Baptist could respond to the Holy Spirit while in his mother’s womb (see Lk 1:41,44 above), then how can we object to Mary receiving the Spirit but a few months earlier, at conception?  Mary had no way to earn this gift; it was granted at the instant she came into being. Nor was it a requirement to bear the sinless Jesus. It was certainly fitting, but not a requirement.  It was God’s sovereign choice, His free gift.