Mary: Assumed Into Christ's Ascension

Saint Paul preached that, because of our union with Jesus, we already mystically participate in His ascension. The Father has “raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places” (Eph 2:6). Paul saw how what begins in us spiritually is meant to become a bodily reality. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom 8:18; cf. Eph 1:18-21). In Mary’s assumption, the Church already sees the realization of this promise – the Church’s own bodily participation in Christ’s ascension.  

The Catechism reminds us that “Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us” (CCC 521). This extends to His Paschal Mystery, which culminated in His ascension and exaltation at the Father’s right hand. We already experience this reality spiritually; when we pray we come boldly to God’s throne, surrounded by myriads of angels and saints (Heb 4:16; 12:22-24). Saint Paul tells us that we will experience it bodily at Christ’s Second Coming: “The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command . . . And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thes 4:16–17).[1] This event was foreshadowed in the Old Testament, in the assumptions of Enoch (Gn 5:24; Heb 11:5) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11–12), and in the resurrection of certain saints when Christ achieved our redemption: “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were [also] raised, and coming out of the tombs after [Jesus’s] resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many” (Mt 27:52–53).

Pope Pius XII has, by definitively proclaiming the truth of Mary’s assumption, assured us that God is faithful to His word and character. Would the God who assumed Enoch and Elijah into glory as a reward for faithfully walking beside Him (Gen 5:24), allow the flesh of His most faithful Mother to rot in the grave? Would the New Adam refuse to share the fullness of His victory with the New Eve, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh (see Gn 2:23; 3:15; Jn 19:26; Rev 12:1-5; Eph 5:25-29)? Would the Son Who applied the merits of His redemption to Mary at her conception, refuse to apply those same merits at her life’s end? God made her the Kecharitōmenē, the one absolutely filled with His grace (Lk 1:28); and, as Cardinal Ratzinger concluded, “where the totality of grace is, there is the totality of salvation.” In Mary’s “pure ‘Yes,’ death, sin’s jailor, has no place.”[2]

The Church, in its yearly celebration of Mary’s assumption, invites us to be permeated by the truth that what has begun in Christ – His resurrection and the glorification of His humanity – will be realized in us (see CCC 966). The Apostle John expressed his awe at this truth, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when [Christ] appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hope in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 Jn 3:2-3). Mary prays for us, asks Jesus to impart the grace moving us to love Him with the purity of her immaculate heart (Mt 5:8). She intercedes that we will, “Set [our] minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For [we] have died, and [our] life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then [we] also will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:1–4) – just as she did, “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve starts” (Rev 12:1). She is, in the words of John, “a great sign” to us all.

Adapted from Shane Kapler’s The Biblical Roots of Marian Consecration: Devotion to the Immaculate Heart in Light of Scripture (TAN Books, 2022).

---

[1] This is not to be confused with the belief among some of our separated brethren known as “the Rapture.” For a Catholic critique of this belief, please go here.

[2] Joseph Ratzinger, Daughter Zion (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983), 78.

Book Review: Cardinal Newman's "Meditations on Mary, Our Mother"

I jumped at the chance to review this book. Two decades ago, I read TAN Book’s Mary: The Second Eve, a compendium of Newman’s apologetic writings on the Blessed Mother and was mesmerized by the way he showed that the earliest post-apostolic writings simply made explicit what was already present in the text of Scripture. His knowledge of the Fathers was voluminous. This new work assembled by TAN’s editorial team casts its net wider to bring together key points from Newman’s apologetics with his devotional thought.

As with all of his works, Meditations on Mary, Our Mother reminds us that Newman was a master of the English language. When we turn from him to modern works, we are reminded of how far we've fallen:

"[The saints'] acts, callings, and relations below, are types and anticipations of their present mission above...The only question is whether the Blessed Virgin had a part, a real part, in the economy of grace, whether, when she was on earth, she secured by her deeds any claim on our memories? If she did, it is impossible we should put her away from us, merely because she has gone hence, and should not look at her still according to the nature of her earthly history, with gratitude and expectation." (p.41)

Yes, Newman would have been a thorn in the side of many a modern editor. "But John, you have to remember that most books are written at a fifth grade level!"

Like TAN's previous compilation, Meditations on Mary, Our Mother displays Newman's brilliance as an apologist. It does not, however, contain the lengthy quotations from the Fathers present in the earlier work. Instead, as the title of this new collection indicates, we are treated to Newman's devotional thoughts, his effusions of love in honor of Our Lady:

"We must not only pray with our lips, and fast, and do outward penance, and be chaste in our bodies; but we must be obedient, and pure in our minds. And so, as regards the Blessed Virgin, it was God's will that she should undertake willingly and with full understanding to be the Mother of Our Lord, and not to be a mere passive instrument whose maternity would have no merit and no reward. The higher our gifts, the higher our duties. It was no light lot to be so intimately near to the Redeemer of men, as she experienced afterwards when she suffered with Him." (p.23)

Newman's apologetic thought circles around Mary's identity as the New Eve. He finds it in both Scripture (Genesis 3, John 19, Revelation 12) and the Church Fathers:

"...the parallelism is the doctrine of the Fathers, from the earliest times; and, this being established, we are able, by the position and office of Eve in our fall, to determine the position and office of Mary in our restoration." (p.17)

Newman notes this identification in the works of Justin Martyr (150 A.D.), Irenaeus (180) and Tertullian (200), men from different geographic regions. From this, he carefully reasons that this understanding had to form part of the original apostolic deposit. And from it he deduces a host of important points:

"Eve made room for Adam's fall, so Mary made room for our Lord's reparation of it. Thus, whereas the free gift was not as the offence, but much greater, it follows that, as Eve co-operated in effecting a great evil, Mary co-operated in effecting a much greater good." (p.19) 

"I do not see how anyone who holds the Catholic doctrine of the supernatural endowments of our first parents has fair reason for doubting our doctrine about the [immaculate conception of the] Blessed Virgin Mary...I ask: Have you any intention to deny that Mary was as fully endowed as Eve? Is it any violent inference, that she, who was to co-operate in the redemption of the world, at least was not less endowed with power from on high, than she who, given as a help-mate to her husband, did in the event but cooperate with him for our ruin?....There was war between the woman and the Serpent. This is most emphatically fulfilled if she had nothing ot do with sin - for, so far as anyone sins, he has an alliance with the Evil One." (p.67, 65, 72)

I could go on and on, but it's far better to read this gem of a book for yourselves. Reading Meditations on Mary, Our Mother is akin to ascending a height via an upward, circular path. Themes are revisited and built upon as you progress through the meditations. It is spiritual reading appropriate to any time in the liturgical year.

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).

The Eucharist and the Assumption

The kids and I came back from celebrating Our Lady's Assumption at Mass a few minutes ago, and I had to share a thought that passed through my mind after receiving Jesus in the Eucharist.  I was thinking about the way Jesus shared the glory of His resurrection with Mary when I remembered these words from John Paul II's encyclical Ecclesia De Eucharistia:

Those who feed on Christ in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: they already possess it on earth, as the first-fruits of a future fullness which will embrace man in his totality. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:54). This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is His body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were, the “secret” of the resurrection. ”

Mary is the first member of the Church to experience the full unfolding of Jesus' resurrected life within her, but the Lord intends it for every one of us who receives Him as the Bread of Life!  No matter what condition our bodies are in at the moment, how much pain or illness they carry, we have already received the Seed that will renew our bodies and introduce us into the life of glory.

Mary's Assumption - the QUINTESSENTIAL Catholic Feast

It really is, just think about it.  By defining the dogma of Mary's Assumption and celebrating it as a Holy Day of Obligation, the Church draws together all the most magnificent elements of our Faith:

The Trinity - into whose life Mary was bodily inserted
Jesus' Resurrection - shared with His Blessed Mother, and eventually with all of us
Salvation - begun in us purely by the grace of God, and brought to perfection through our lifelong cooperation
The Goodness of the Body - that it is not at odds with living a "spiritual life," but is destined for glory
Sacred Tradition - by which we have explicit knowledge of Mary's assumption
Sacred Scripture - by which we have implicit knowledge of her assumption (the image of Rev.12:1-2)
Papal Infallibility - which cemented our knowledge of it
The Communion of Saints - Mary being its most magnificent member and interceding for the Church on earth and in purgatory
The Eucharist - by which we give thanks to God and unite ourselves to Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension, just like Mary.

Creed & Mysteries

Just noticed something this morning: the correlation between the words of the Creed and the Rosary's Glorious Mysteries.

"I believe in the Holy Spirit" - Descent of the Spirit at Pentecost
"...the resurrection of the dead" - Mary's assumption into Heaven
"...and the life of the world to come" - Mary's coronation