Assumption of Mary
Keeping our Faith through Commemorating the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary
“A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain, looking to her time of delivery.” (Revelations 12:1-2)1
We Christians have always been grateful to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. She is the utmost paradigm of a woman so pure and divine. In the very essence of Our Lord Jesus’ salvation from the original debauchery tainted with ignominy and malevolence brought forth by Adam and Eve, there is a Woman behind Him, and that was the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. With these utter Christian qualities, it is very much rightful indeed that Catholics have intended a day for Her to commemorate Her assumption to Heaven and Her irrevocable and ethereal responsibilities for Her Son. And so, August 15 marks the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, which celebrates Mary’s assumption straight from Heaven without experiencing the demise which all of us can go through.
To further discuss the significance of this day, let us all go back to the history and the origin of this infallible Catholic dogma. Due to the antiquity of this celebration, the history of the feast is still untraceable. Theologians and historians still have to find out the missing link regarding this feast. Yet, basing upon the life of Saint Theodosius (d.529), the feast was practiced before the year 500 AD and probably it was exercised in the month of August.2 Nonetheless; it was Pope Pius XII, imposing papal infallibility, who clearly defined the Assumption of Virgin Mary in Munificentissimus Deus.3 Pope Pius XII said, “By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, 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.4”On the contrary, this dogmatic practice of Catholics has often been rejected by some Christian denominations and is open to debate.
The very spirit of this celebration is to be known to all Christians that Our Blessed Virgin Mary had done a downright contribution to the omnipotent and merciful trait of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. It suggests to us, Christian, that time will come through Divine intervention that we may someday be rejoined with Mary in the Heaven. Most of all, it must be a practice not done with words and a mere thought, but also with paramount emulation of Mama Mary’s deeds: being obedient to God, being faithful in the power of praying, and being a devout Christian in all means and ways.
By: Kloyde A. Caday
© 2011 Universal Catholic Faith and Traditions
Feast of Saint Maximilian Kolbe
August 14, 2011
Works Cited:
1http://www.bibleclaret.org/bibles/
2 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02006b.htm
3 http://catholicism.about.com/od/holydaysandholidays/p/Assumption.htm
4 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html
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