August 15, Feast of the Assumption - Did Mary's Assumption Really Occur? [Ecumenical]

NOR ^ | August 2008 | Hurd Baruch

[NYer]

Ed. Note: The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is August 15.

What happened to the mother of Jesus Christ at the end of her life? The answer you get depends upon whom you ask. "Nothing unusual," say Protestants. "A miracle! She was taken directly to Heaven!" say Catholics -- at least those who know that Pope Pius XII solemnly proclaimed the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a dogma that all Catholics must believe: "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" (Munificen­tissimus Deus, #44; reaffirmed at Vatican II in Lumen Gentium, #59).

Catholics who are accustomed to meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary might assume that all of the 20 events memorialized therein can be found in the Gospels, or at least elsewhere in the New Testament, but the Assumption is an exception to the rule. Not only is there no eyewitness account or even an unattributed description of the Assumption in Scripture, there is absolutely no hint of it. By way of comparison, see the accounts of the Ascension of Christ given in the Acts of the Apostles (1:6-12) and the Gospel of Luke (24:50-53), which have the Apostles as witnesses looking on as Christ rises up to Heaven.

[NYer]

Hurd Baruch, a retired attorney living in Tucson, Arizona, is the author of Light on Light: Illuminations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ from the Mystical Visions of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich (Maxkol Communications, 2004).

[NYer]

Did not realize NOR had to be excerpted. The article needs to be read in its entirety.

[the invisib1e hand]

Ave, Maria!

[raygunfan]

with all due respect.

Rock on, Mary!!

[wagglebee]

And just to show that this WAS NOT "invented" by Pope Pius XII in 1950 and has ALWAYS been believed:

 
"Assumption of the Virgin Mary" by Peter Paul Rubens, 1626

"Assumption of the Virgin" by Titian, 1516-18

"Assumption of the Virgin" by Annibale Carracci, 1590

"The Assumption of the Virgin" by Botticini, 1475-76

[DungeonMaster]

Pure debate bait.

[The_Reader_David]

In giving birth thou didst keep thy virginity, and in thy dormition thou didst not forsake the world, O Mother of God. Thou didst pass on to life, since thou art the Mother of Life, and by thine intercessions thou redeemest our souls from death.

--The Troparion of the Dormition of the Theotokos (Tone 1)

The only objection we Orthodox have to the dogmatization of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is that it failed to condemn the heretical opinion that she did not undergo death before her assumption body and soul into heaven.

[A.A. Cunningham]

What’s that hook doing in your mouth?

[wagglebee]

LOL!

[Wonder Warthog]

"The only objection we Orthodox have to the dogmatization of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is that it failed to condemn the heretical opinion that she did not undergo death before her assumption body and soul into heaven."

Why should that idea be "heretical"??? The Bible specifically records instances in which prophets were "taken up" without experiencing death. The RC position is simply "we don't know" if death was part of the Assumption or not.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

You think you know what Protestants believe. The mother of Jesus Mary, blessed among women but please give me chapter and verse....where Mary was taken into heaven like Enoch. We take communion in obedience to Christ, His command to do it in remembrance of me.

[marshmallow]

Is this an accurate summary of the naysayers' position?

Jesus died but rose from the dead = possible.

Jesus ascended bodily into heaven = possible.

Jesus' mother taken bodily into heaven = impossible.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

The Bible specifically records instances in which prophets were “taken up” without experiencing death
___________________________________________________

Yes it does Enoch and Elijah but it records the event, it does not record anyone else, with the exception of Christ after His Crucifixion, so that the Holy Spirit would come.

[wtc911]

Jesus' mother taken bodily into heaven = impossible.

___________________________________________

IOW....there are some things even God can't do (according to a naysayer). Well, that's news to me.

[Petronski]

Please give me chapter and verse for sola scriptura.

[AnAmericanMother]

More:

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, by Bergognone (active 1481-1522). (I'll note that this is in the Met, which has been burned often by forgeries - it looks a little too modern to me to be early 16th c., although looking at the Apostles it may just be that the Virgin and Christ have been restored/overpainted)

Mosaics of the dormition, assumption, and coronation of Mary in St. Maria de Travestere, by Pietro Cavallini (late 13th century).

[A.A. Cunningham]

"There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know. And since the Holy Spirit has told us nothing about it, we can make of it no article of faith . . . It is enough to know that she lives in Christ. . . . The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart." Martin Luther, 1 September 1522

"Indeed, no Christian doubts that the most worthy Mother of the Lord lives with her beloved Son in heavenly joy." Martin Butzer 1545

"Because of this, we believe that the pure immaculate chamber of the God-bearer, the Virgin Mary, is a temple of the Holy Spirit, that is her holy body, borne by angels into heaven." Heinrich Bullinger 1590

[netmilsmom]

>>You think you know what Protestants believe.<<

Honestly, I don’t care much about what Protestants believe.
And I don’t care what Protestants believe I believe.

I know what some Protestants believe, I have gaggles of them in my extended family. All great people.

[Mr Rogers]

For this Protestant, it just seems likely that if the Assumption HAD occurred, someone would have noticed. Her assumption would have occurred well before much of the NT was written, and it seems like it would be a significant event...