The Assumption of Mary

A mid-summer solemnity is the one we celebrate today - that of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother, a dogma of faith that was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII on November 1st 1950, 75 years ago. In his encyclical “Munificentissimus Deus” the Pope solemnly declared “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.” The Assumption of Mary is not to be confused with the Ascension of Jesus. Jesus ascends of his own power and will because he is divine. On the other hand, Mary does not raise herself. God raises her; she is taken up to heaven. The first evidence of belief in the Assumption of Mary can be found in "Transitus Mariae," Latin for "The Crossing Over of Mary," an apocryphal account that dates back to the second and third centuries. For a while people also celebrated the Dormition, the 'sleeping of Mary,' a tradition which recalls the apostles finding her tomb empty, concluding that she was taken up into heaven. By the 14th century, belief in the assumption was widespread, and when Pope Pius XII declared it a dogma of faith in 1950, it was a truth almost universally accepted and professed by the Christian community in every corner of the world.