Thank you all for the replies. I was thinking that Mary would have participated in Christ’s redemptive suffering, being His mother, even more so than any other saint in history.
I was curious because of I always thought that Mary was assumed with out dying, especially when I compared Elijah’s assumption with that of Mary.
Perhaps this might shed some light on the question.
The document that pronounced the dogma of the Assumption is called Munificentissimus Deus. The specific paragraph containing the definition, remains open to whether or not Mary did or did not have a temporal death. It reads as follows*#44 …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.*Emphasis mine. You see how the wording accommodates both understandings.
Now, that being said, if we read elsewhere in the document, it does suggest she did die. This is not part of the dogma, but reveals, as others in this thread said, that it is the Church’s common teaching that she did die. Here are examples of those other paragraphs indicating she did undergo temporal death:*#17 - In the liturgical books which deal with the feast either of the dormition or of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin there are expressions that agree in testifying that, when the Virgin Mother of God passed from this earthly exile to heaven, what happened to her sacred body was, by the decree of divine Providence, in keeping with the dignity of the Mother of the Word Incarnate, and with the other privileges she had been accorded. Thus, to cite an illustrious example, this is set forth in that sacramentary which Adrian I, our predecessor of immortal memory, sent to the Emperor Charlemagne. These words are found in this volume: “Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which
the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, who has begotten your Son our Lord incarnate from herself.”
#21 - It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even
after death.
Theologically speaking, it is fitting that Mary who shared most intimately with Christ’s passion, should also experience death as he did. The prophet Simeon said to Mary:Luke 2:34-35 …Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also**), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed."*You see how this language mirrors Christ being pierced in his side revealing his death when water and blood poured out. As the ultimate Christian, it would be consistent that Mary should suffer temporal death as did her Savior.
Regarding the issue of temporal death as a result of original sin, consider this. Death was a consequence of original sin, but that does not mean that if a human suffers death, that he did so because it was a consequence of original sin. See the difference? Let’s say the punishment for not eating vegetables in a family is to go to your room an hour early. And let’s say 3 of 4 siblings don’t eat their vegetables and are assigned this punishment. If the 4th sibling submits to join the others and goes to bed an hour early, he is
not going to bed an hour early as the consequence for his disobedience. In other words, one could not conclude that just because the punishment for not eating vegetables was to go to bed an hour early that everyone who went to bed an hour early was guilty. In the same way, just because Jesus or Mary suffered temporal deaths, it doesn’t follow that they suffered temporal death because of association with original sin.
In the same way, if we take literally the passage in Revelation that Mary suffered birth pangs, it doesn’t follow that she suffered birth pangs
as a result of original sin. Of course many theologians take the Revelation passage figuratively or tie it into Simeon’s prophecy that Mary cried out spiritually because of the suffering that her son’s incarnation would bring, but my point is, that we shouldn’t be concerned that Mary suffering temporal death or having birth pangs would contradict her Assumption or Immaculate Conception.
OK. Anathema provided the eisegesis, you provided the citation. Fair enough?