I repeat (and its getting boring) that the Church does NOT teach that Mary died. If that were the case all Catholics would be bound to believe that upon pain of sin and we are not. If we are then the three priests I spoke to are liars which I know they are not.
The portion of ccc 966 that you site is a quote from a Byzantine Mass. Footnotes are your friend. Does including a quote make it doctrine?No, “dormition” does not leave it open to death or no death. Dormition very clearly means death in Christian vocabulary. If I told you that someone had “fallen asleep in the Lord”, would you not know that I meant that person had died? Since Dormition means death, then teaching that Mary did not die contradicts the Catechism.
This is not correct. I quoted in a previous post the collect from the Feast of the Assumption in the Dominican Rite, which is a Western Rite. It quite clearly references her death. And the fact that the Latin Rite is the largest really has no bearing on the matter whatsoever. Historically, the various churches have emphasized different teachings because of the particular circumstances that each Church has encountered.
My priest would be confused if I used that phrasing and wonder if I’d recently immigrated from the planet Latin.
It just so happens that I was at Vespers tonight while you wrote this, and I asked my priest about it. No so much the “is it a mortal sin” question, but “is it a teaching of the Church that Mary died before she was assumed into heaven?” The answer? “Of course it is? Why else do we celebrate her death and venerate the icon of her in the tomb? Her death and resurrection echo Christ’s and prefigure our own.” He had more to say, but it is late… So I asked him about this idea that this is somehow an “optional” belief and he said that he really didn’t know, as he’d never studied the question. What he was clear on, though, is that the death and Assumption of Mary are teachings of the Church, and inseparable.
I have a question for you: Prior to 1950, was belief in the Assumption optional, since it had not yet been dogmatically defined? Prior to the Council of Trent, was it optional to believe that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of our Lord?
It seems this needs more clarification. The Church chose not to take on this matter for clarification for whatever reasons existed at the time. The Church moves slowly and clarifies these matters as needed. Perhaps no pressing need is seen.
You are very quick to accuse a person of lying. I would simply assume that they are mistaken, but sincere.
As a coincidence, I was reading about Saint Pius X today. In a wikipedia article was the following paragraph:
I don’t know how you drew this conclusion at all. Perhaps you are writing what you want to hear, but neither he nor I am agreeing with you. I’m not wrong either. Mary died and the Church has always known this. All people die. The burden of proof to the contrary is on you or your “friend” who claims to believe that she didn’t actually die.
You aren’t correct to imply the CCC promulgated in 1994 in Latin contains ALL of the Church’s teachings. It doesn’t. It is a summation and an outline. Basically by dismissing how other Rites practice and teach, and claiming they must define and conform to the CCC published in 1994 is way too far fetched. You saying their rites and Traditions are wrong. How can you say that? That is an awful lot of people to dismiss. How is that?
Your wife is a sharp one!If what you say is true that the Church doesn’t teach that Mary died then you are in fact, saying the Church teaches she didn’t die at all. To say one is true, implies the opposite is false and visa versa. If you insist on telling others that the Church doesn’t teach Mary died then you are saying she went alive into Heaven and are distorting the Church teaching regarding her Assumption. Death isn’t by degrees. A person either dies or doesn’t. Mary died. Christ died. We all die. This is a fact. No one gets out of it and as I’ve said before which you completely ignored, Mary was the only human being to be perfectly conformed to her Divine Son in this life. She followed Him her entire life long from her Immaculate Conception to her singular death to her glorious Assumption into Heaven and then her subsequent Coronation as Heaven’s Queen. All of this faithful Catholics know and pass on whether or no it gets dogmatically defined. Dogmatic definitions aren’t new revelations of things. They get promulgated to end debates and close the door to all the avenues of speculation. Obviously you’d prefer at least one door was left open and claim it still is.
I don’t think it is true that Thistle wishes for this door to be left open. He/she just firmly believes that it has been left open by the church, while personally believing that Mary died. I see the point, as Mary’s death was not explicit in the dogma. I contend that her death is a teaching of the church that required submission of intellect and will, even though it has not been dogmatized.
You are wrong. What kind of assertion is it that if the Church does not teach Mary died that means the Church teaches she did not die.That’s a stupid claim to make.
I agree 100%. However, I’ve chatted with Thistle on a few other threads and she tends to stick to her guns even when incorrect. I expect the same thing here as well. It is fun and adds a color to the discussion. I just have a hard time when she insists her view is the Church’s view when it clearly isn’t, so I speak up.
Sorry but this is incorrect. If as you say, Catholics are bound, then you too are bound to accept Mary died and so is your “friend.” Think about your Rosary and the Mystery of Mary’s Assumption. How many times have you meditated on this Mystery in your lifetime? Or do you self-check if you find your mind wandering to Mary’s falling asleep in the Lord? So how is that? When you received your first instructions regarding the Rosary and it included the Mystery of the Assumption, you were handed a teaching of the Church about the Assumption as well as much more. Do you reject this as a teaching method? Many have relied upon it to hand on the Faith faithfully ever since St. Dominic gave it to us and it was used to defeat the Albigensian heresy.
I care about the correct teaching concerning this subject because, first of all, a denial of the Dormition is contrary to the universal liturgy of the Church, both East and West (e.g. the Veneranda nobis collect). There is no contrary tradition to the Dormition. Secondly, while the Dormition may not be included in Pius XII’s definition of the Assumption, he clearly taught it. We can name many popes who taught the Dormition. Can anyone name a single pope who denied it? It is a mystery to me how people think they are at liberty to freely dismiss without any reason the authoritative teaching of their pastors a well as the perennial teaching of the universal Church.