Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today the Church throughout the world observes the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For Roman Catholics, today is a holy day of obligation, which means we are required to attend Mass, just as we are on Sundays, on pain of sin. That sounds pretty solemn, I know. I don't know about you, but for me, it's really the case that today I get to go to Mass. To that end, on holy days, parishes offer more Masses and celebrate them at convenient times.

Christians believe that the Blessed Virgin, either prior to dying or immediately after dying, was bodily assumed into heaven. In a week's time we celebrate the related Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church teaches that after her glorious Assumption, she was crowned Queen of Heaven. In fact, the Blessed Virgin's Assumption and her coronation as Queen of Heaven are the fourth and fifth mysteries of Glorious Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. And so, her bodily Assumption is a mystery of our redemption that we can and should ponder often. The fruit of this mystery is the grace of a happy death.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven serves a preview of what awaits those who respond to God's gracious invitation issued through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Any authentic response is both prompted by and made in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our Blessed Mother is often closely aligned with the Holy Spirit. After all, she was in the midst of the nascent Church at the first Christian Pentecost, when, in accord with Jesus's promise, the Holy Spirit descended on Mary, the Twelve, and others who responded to God's call in the form of fire. Being the model Christian disciple, Mary shows us the glory that awaits the children of God.

In the one and only infallible papal proclamation since the First Vatican Council, in the Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, set forth and loosely defined the dogma of papal infallibility, Pope Pius XII, in 1950, dogmatically declared the Blessed Virgin's Assumption. This was no great innovation as her Assumption, at least up until the 16th century, was held always, everywhere, and by everyone. In other words, it was held to be a dogma of the faith prior to the then-Holy Father's proclamation.

As Pius wrote in his Apostolic Constitution On the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

the august Mother of God, mysteriously united from all eternity with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination, immaculate in her conception, a virgin inviolate in her divine motherhood, the wholehearted companion of the divine Redeemer who won complete victory over sin and its consequences, gained at last the supreme crown of her privileges - to be preserved immune from the corruption of the tomb, and like her Son, when death had been conquered, to be carried up body and soul in the exalted glory of heaven, there to sit in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of ages

Today the Church throughout the world prays: Veni Sancte Spiritus, veni per Mariam - Come Holy Spirit, come through Mary!