Assumption of Mary

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Can anyone tell me why it’s believed that Mary was assumed into Heaven? Please don’t tell me anything like, “Jesus wants the best for His mother”, or anything like that. What are the earliest writings on the Assumption? Which of those writings define the belief?
 
Let’s make answering this question a game like “treasure hunt”. You have to search on the internet to find what I am asking for, and then I give you another thing to search for. When you are done, you will have your answer.

First part of the treasure hunt. Find an Orthodox or Catholic Church that claims to possess a bone fragment from Mary that it venerates as a relic.
 
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Matt16_18:
Let’s make answering this question a game like “treasure hunt”. You have to search on the internet to find what I am asking for, and then I give you another thing to search for. When you are done, you will have your answer.

First part of the treasure hunt. Find an Orthodox or Catholic Church that claims to possess a bone fragment from Mary that it venerates as a relic.
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I know where this first part is going. There isn’t one. However, does that really mean that she was assumed? Maybe nobody thought to take part of her body from her burial site.
 
CCC#966 (as found at usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt3art9p6.htm)
*"Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death."508 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:

In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.509*
The underlying theological principle that leads to this doctrine is stated in the Catechism, but it is not elaborated upon. Did you catch it? “…preserved free from all stain of original sin.” The Assumption is a logical extension of the immaculate conception. If the wages of sin is death (including decay), Mary need not share in this penalty of sin for she was spared from both original sin (which carries the penalty of being born mortal and spiritually dead) and from personal sin, thus she would not see decay. (Most theologians, I understand, believe that she died physically, and was then resurrected, but this is not defined either way).
 
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Juxtaposer:
Maybe nobody thought to take part of her body from her burial site.
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That is a pretty big assumption that you are making! The bones of the holy saints were were kept as relics from the very beginning of the Church, as can be seen by reading The Martyrdom of Polycarp, one of the earliest Christian writings that we have outside the canon of the NT scriptures.

Next step on your treasure hunt. Find a source on the internet that gives a plausible explanation as to why the early Christians would simply forget to honor the Mother of God by keeping her bones in a reliquary.
 
On August 15, the feast of the Assumption, we found this in the first reading:
Rev 11:19-12:1 Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a great hailstorm.
A great and wondrous 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.

These verses refer to Mary. Jesus is the new covenant. Mary is the Ark of teh new convenant because she carried Jesus in her undefiled womb. If God’s temple is in heaven, and Mary is the new ark, then this means that Mary’s body is in heaven.

Note that there are many many similarities between the Ark that held the 10 commandments and Mary who held the CHrist.
Both arks held the manna from heaven, both contained God’s word.
The similarities are just too many to ignore.
 
Also,
the 2nd reading on Aug 15th was 1 Cor15:20-27 in which St Paul talks about the Ressurection of the Body.
This does not explicitly show the Assumption of the BVM, but it gives testimony to the Bodily Ressurection, which we as Catholics believe happened to Mary at the end of her earthly life.
 
<<The belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is founded on the apocryphal treatise De Obitu S. Dominae, bearing the name of St. John, which belongs however to the fourth or fifth century. It is also found in the book De Transitu Virginis, falsely ascribed to St. Melito of Sardis, and in a spurious letter attributed to St. Denis the Areopagite. If we consult genuine writings in the East, it is mentioned in the sermons of St. Andrew of Crete, St. John Damascene, St. Modestus of Jerusalem and others. In the West, St. Gregory of Tours (De gloria mart., I, iv) mentions it first. The sermons of St. Jerome and St. Augustine for this feast, however, are spurious. St. John of Damascus (P. G., I, 96) thus formulates the tradition of the Church of Jerusalem:
Code: 
St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven.
Today, the belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is universal in the East and in the West; according to Benedict XIV (De Festis B.V.M., I, viii, 18) it is a probable opinion, which to deny were impious and blasphemous. >>

Also,

<<Note: By promulgating the Bull Munificentissimus Deus, 1 November, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared infallibly that the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a dogma of the Catholic Faith. Likewise, the Second Vatican Council taught in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium that “the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things (n. 59).”]>>
 
**Check the parallels between the Ark of the Old Covenant - within which the Presence of God resided - and Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant:
  1. David “arose and went” to the hill country of Judah “to bring up from there the ark of God” (2Sam 6:2 KJV)
  • Likewise, Mary “arose and went” to the hill country of Judah bringing within her womb our Lord Jesus, Who is God (Luke 1:39)
  1. David “dances for joy” when he finds himself in the presence of the ark (2Sam 6:14,16)
  • John the baptist “leaps for joy” as Mary approached (Luke 1:44)
  1. David says “how can this be that the ark of the Lord comes to me?” (2Sam 6:9)
  • Elizabeth says: “how can this be granted me, that the mother of my Lord could come to me?” (Luke 1:43)
  1. The ark remained in the hill country for 3 months (2Sam 6:11)
  • Likewise, Mary remains with Elizabeth in the hill country for 3 months (Luke 1:56).
Once we accept that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant - the physical vessel chosen by God to carry His Divine Son - then the fact of Mary’s Assumption is “clearly” revealed in Revelation 11:19

“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple”.
**
 
We should note that sometimes, the very fact of assumption also has shock value :eek: since normally we go to the next life without our bodies.

And so people often forget that the bible mentions that Elijah and Enoch were also assumed into heaven. I don’t have the verses off the top of my head (I’m at work). But the bottom line is that it’s not that fantastic that someone gets assumed into heaven.

Also, What about the people who were raised from the dead? (lazarus, the people who rose when Christ died on the cross, et al) Are we to believe that they just hung out on earth until they died again?

Martin
 
Trento said:
**Check the parallels between the Ark of the Old Covenant - within which the Presence of God resided - and Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant:
  1. David “arose and went” to the hill country of Judah “to bring up from there the ark of God” (2Sam 6:2 KJV)
  • Likewise, Mary “arose and went” to the hill country of Judah bringing within her womb our Lord Jesus, Who is God (Luke 1:39)
  1. David “dances for joy” when he finds himself in the presence of the ark (2Sam 6:14,16)
  • John the baptist “leaps for joy” as Mary approached (Luke 1:44)
  1. David says “how can this be that the ark of the Lord comes to me?” (2Sam 6:9)
  • Elizabeth says: “how can this be granted me, that the mother of my Lord could come to me?” (Luke 1:43)
  1. The ark remained in the hill country for 3 months (2Sam 6:11)
  • Likewise, Mary remains with Elizabeth in the hill country for 3 months (Luke 1:56).
Once we accept that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant - the physical vessel chosen by God to carry His Divine Son - then the fact of Mary’s Assumption is “clearly” revealed in Revelation 11:19

“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple”.
**
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If Revelation were read alone, it would seem as though the ark could be the country of Israel. For example, the twelve stars would represent the twelve tribes of Israel. However, due to these parallels, it seems more plausible that the ark in Revelation was in fact Mary. This doesn’t necessarily mean that she was assumed, though. We don’t know what our glorified bodies will look like. Maybe they’ll look something like our earthly bodies. Maybe John’s vision was of Mary’s glorified body. Wouldn’t that make sense? That he saw her glorified body? After all; she was in Heaven.
 
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Matt16_18:
The bones of the holy saints were were kept as relics from the very beginning of the Church, as can be seen by reading The Martyrdom of Polycarp, one of the earliest Christian writings that we have outside the canon of the NT scriptures.
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Polycarp died around one hundred years after Mary. That’s enough time for customs to change.
 
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Juxtaposer:
Polycarp died around one hundred years after Mary. That’s enough time for customs to change.
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In a non-literate time such as the first and second century when tradition and culture were passed down orally, 100 years is no time at all. People were extremely fastidious about handing things down accurately to the next generation. A notion such as this popping up out of thin air after so brief a time would have caused a* major * uproar, of which we find no evidence. Don’t forget–even the gospels weren’t written until decades after the events they describe.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=12674
 
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Fidelis:
In a non-literate time such as the first and second century when tradition and culture were passed down orally, 100 years is no time at all. People were extremely fastidious about handing things down accurately to the next generation. A notion such as this popping up out of thin air after so brief a time would have caused a* major * uproar, of which we find no evidence. Don’t forget–even the gospels weren’t written until decades after the events they describe.%between%
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You have a point there. Allow me to ponder this. Could someone answer #12?
 
Juxtaposer: You didn’t answer my post…

Imprimartin:
Also, What about the people who were raised from the dead? (lazarus, the people who rose when Christ died on the cross, et al) Are we to believe that they just hung out on earth until they died again?
Actually…yes. Christ was the firstborn from the among the dead (Col. 1:18), the first to be raised to new life in the glorified state. The others must have been risen to mortal bodies again. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’m not.
 
Juxtaposer, I just finished reading a booklet, borrowed from my church, called Mary—The Second Eve, which is compiled of writings of Cardinal John Henry Newman. It was published by Tan in 1987. It is excellent, and answers your questions beautifully. The writings were assembled by a nun, but I’m sorry, I can’t recall her name. The Marian doctrines are made clear by the time I read to the end of the booklet. Newman also gives many examples of what the early church fathers said about Mary. I hope you might be able to find a copy of the booklet.
 
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twf:
Juxtaposer: You didn’t answer my post…

Imprimartin:
Also, What about the people who were raised from the dead? (lazarus, the people who rose when Christ died on the cross, et al) Are we to believe that they just hung out on earth until they died again?
Actually…yes. Christ was the firstborn from the among the dead (Col. 1:18), the first to be raised to new life in the glorified state. The others must have been risen to mortal bodies again. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’m not.
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So are you telling me that all who have been assumed have yet to receive their glorified bodies?

Kalona,
Thanks for the recommendation. Does this book use ante-Nicene writings to back everything up?
 
A slightly different way of looking at this:

The assumption, ascension, and other such ideas are from a time in history that held a “world view” that ceased to exist several hundred years ago. We know that heaven isn’t a place above the sky as was firmly believed then - anything going up would continue into nearly infinite space. The concept of bodies of significant individuals traveling to heaven is similar to the “infancy narratives” of Matthew and Luke - stories meant to convey the extreme importance and reverance attached to the people and not to teach literal history.
Pat
 
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Juxtaposer:
If Revelation were read alone, it would seem as though the ark could be the country of Israel. For example, the twelve stars would represent the twelve tribes of Israel. However, due to these parallels, it seems more plausible that the ark in Revelation was in fact Mary. This doesn’t necessarily mean that she was assumed, though. We don’t know what our glorified bodies will look like. Maybe they’ll look something like our earthly bodies. Maybe John’s vision was of Mary’s glorified body. Wouldn’t that make sense? That he saw her glorified body? After all; she was in Heaven.
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That’s an excellent insight, because it actually speaks in favor of Mary being assumed.

First of all, what does it mean to have a *glorified * body? We know that Christ had a glorified body when he appeared to his disciples after the resurrection–it was physical – he could eat fish and it still had nail prints – but it was also changed --he could pass through walls and vanish immediately (Luke 24).

Most of us upon our death, if our destiny is heaven, will dwell there at first as only spirits, to await the Second Coming and Final Judgment until we are reunited with our (now glorified) bodies. If Mary experienced death the same way as everyone else, at best she would now be a spirit awaiting her body. Judging by what we know of the properties of Jesus’ glorified body, if Mary was assumed with a *glorified * body she (and arguably Enoch and Elijah) would now not merely be a disembodied spirit awaiting a body. In fact, if we take the Woman in Revelation 12 as Mary, we notice that even though she is clearly in heaven, she is described with great physicality-- She has feet, a head, a crown, clothes, etc. We see some of these things attributed in a limited way to other un-named persons in Revelation, but not with the pointedness and detail we see when applied this image of Mary.
 
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