Had another existential discussion with a friend yesterday. Yeah, that’s all we writers do, sit around, sip absinth, and wax philosophical about all manner of ephemera.
Except in this case the subject wasn’t ephemeron. It is something that bears on my identity as a Roman Catholic Christian and it bugs me.
Before you click away to something less…um, cosmic, let me entice you with the promise that I’ll keep it short. Hey, if Heaven & Hell didn’t get me excommunicated, maybe this will.
In the Roman calendar, today is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the Orthodox calendar, it’s the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos (falling asleep of the God-bearer) both of which commemorate Mary’s departure from this life.
In his apostolic constitution, MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption connecting it to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. He states:
5. Now God has willed that the Blessed Virgin Mary should be exempted from this general rule. She, by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.
6. Thus, when it was solemnly proclaimed that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, was from the very beginning free from the taint of original sin, the minds of the faithful were filled with a stronger hope that the day might soon come when the dogma of the Virgin Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven would also be defined by the Church’s supreme teaching authority.
Read the whole thing to get a better picture of his thinking. I promised to keep this short. Anyway, this teaching always bothered me. Mary was a human being after all. She was born into the same world, with the same proscriptions as the rest of us. However, because of her unique devotion to God, she was found suitable to bear the Savior and bestow on Him His humanity. No doubt there were enormous graces bestowed on her , but she still had to die. Did she then receive the fullness of salvation by the resurrection of her body and assumption into heaven?
I don’t know. I wasn’t there.
Matthew tells us in the 27th chapter of his gospel that when Jesus died, “The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.”¹
As a Roman Catholic I am often asked to explain the Church’s devotion to the Blessed Mother to my Protestant brothers and sisters, as well as unbelievers. I tell them that, I too have struggled to understand the Church’s devotion to Mary and to make it my own. I stress that the Church does not worship Mary, but does venerate her as the Mother of God. She is the new Eve, the first and best disciple of Christ. No human being knew Jesus as well as Mary did and does. She is our example in all things pertaining to the Christian life. She is our mother.
And so this must be sufficient for me. In this case, as in all others that are far beyond my tiny little mind, I quote Deuteronomy 29:29
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
¹Matt 27:52-53
Well said, Rob!