This Sunday, Aug. 15, we observe the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. Normally, this solemnity is a holy day of obligation in its own right. But because it falls on a Sunday, its obligation is joined to that of our weekly obligation to attend Mass out of love and the desire to adore God. 

 

The Assumption of Mary serves as a profound lesson of faith for us. It is also a reminder and a call for us to examine our own relation to Christ and the Church as we hope for the reward of eternal life in heaven. 

 

Mary’s Assumption is not explicitly mentioned in the Scriptures. But the Church teaches us that revelation is given to the Church in both Scripture and in the living faith of the Church, that is, in tradition. 

 

Pope Pius XII, who used the role of the papacy to define definitively and infallibly the Assumption in 1950, made very clear that belief in Mary’s Assumption arose from the prayers, memory and reflection of the Church going back to the earliest time. 

 

The implementation of the definitive phase of God’s plan of salvation began with the Immaculate Conception. Mary is full of grace because she was given the exceptional privilege of exemption from the effects of original sin at her conception. Throughout her life she never sinned and always lived fully the will of God. This was true as well at the end of her life. 

 

In his declaration defining the teaching of the Assumption, Pope Pius XII stated “… 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.” 

 

Using this very precise phrase, “having completed the course of her earthly life,” the Holy Father acknowledges a question still open to the faith of the Church. Did Mary die? Or alternatively, was she taken to heaven without death, rather like Elijah whom the Old Testament describes as being taken up by God in a whirlwind (2 Kg, 2:11)? 

 

In either case, it is our faith that God did not allow the decay of the body to touch Mary at the end of her life. Not only was she freed from that consequence of sin, but her body followed the body of Jesus to heaven and to immediate glorification and fulfillment. 

 

The Assumption, then, is a yearly reminder of God’s victory over sin. The power of sin in this world has already been broken. While we will face death and decay because of sin, Christ calls us to follow Him with Mary. 

 

That means that our bodies and those of every person are sacred. They are meant to rise from the tomb. They are meant for the glory of our own assumption one day. 

 

Our bodies truly are meant to be temples of the Holy Spirit. They are meant to be guarded, respected and used according to God’s plan. We are to offer back to God the gift of our bodies as we join Mary in heaven. 

 

Given our call to live our faith in the body, we recognize the gift of being made by God as male or female. We embrace respect for the body and its use. Purity and chastity, the use of sexuality in marriage, the rejection of illicit drugs or excessive alcohol, the burial of the body or cremated remains at the end of life, all of these are part of our respect for the eternal destiny God plans for our glorified bodies. 

 

The Assumption of Mary is more than just an honor for the Mother of God. It is a calling to 

all of us.