Brother JR, is it correct that Mary was assumed into Heaven, body and soul?
Yes. That’s why her assumption is a mystery of faith and a moral teaching too. God saves both body and soul, demonstrating his love for the fullness of our humanity.
At the same time I remember that when Jesus was resurrected, his body was resurrected (not only his soul), he reassured his Apostles that he is not a ghost, since he has flesh (body), he let Thomas touch his wounds, and he ate fish.
Jesus was not resurrect. He rose. There is a difference. Resurrected is a heresy. It implies that some other power raised him. He rose, implies that he did so of his own power.
I am fascinated by this part of God’s plans, that God plans to resurrect and glorify our bodies, because this seems to strongly indicate that in God’s plans, the body has a high level of dignity and is destined for eternal existence (even if not in its current form, but in a transformed and glorified manner). But these are my speculations, and I don’t know for sure whether they are in line with the teaching of the Church.
The body will maintain it’s current form. But it will no longer have its current needs and weaknesses. Jesus still looked like himself. That’s how they recognized him. He obviously had a stomach, that’s why he was able to eat. Nothing was missing. Bu the glorified body has abilities that we do not yet have, such as appearing and disappearing. Jesus did this over and over again. Mary has done it in her apparitions.
I’m coming from a secular materialist world that sees the body as nothing more than an elaborate system of various chemicals organized into cells and these cells organized into a multicellular organism, a product of the natural (material) world with no supernatural soul in this body, and this body will eventually decay after death, never to exist again. It is very difficult to regard the body as something possessing dignity, with this underlying materialistic worldview.
Actually, the biological aspect of the body is worthy of awe. The problem is not with biology. Biology describes the body correctly. The problem is that we have lost our sense of awe and wonder. If we stop and think about the fact that such inanimate materials can come together in a living and sentient being, it inspires awe and wonder. Try to put all of these molecules, proteins, enzymes, etc together into a tray and see what happens. Nothing. But the fact that life is breathed into them, not by us, is stunning. That should be enough to inspire respect, even if one were an atheist.
Another thing that fascinates me is the respect our Church affords to the bodies of the dead, whether they are ordinary people or the incorrupt relics of saints (St. Cecilia the martyr of ancient Roman persecution, St. Bernadette Soubiros and St. Catherine Laboure to whom Holy Mary appeared, whose bodies are incorrupt, St. Stephen the founding King of Hungary whose right hand is incorrupt, St. Anthony of Padova whose tongue is incorrupt etc.).
We accord the body respect because of its dignity, a dignity that it derives from its origin, the hand of God. That’s why we don’t mutilate the body or when we cremate a deceased person, the ashes must be buried together, not scattered. The unity of the body must be protected, because it speaks of the unity within the God-Head.
Read Pope John Paul’s Theology of the Body. Not only does he speak about sexual love, but he speaks about the dignity of the body itself and how it is a sign of God’s unity within himself.
To get back to the topic, Mary’s assumption speaks to us of God’s love for his human creation and how he fulfills his promise to protect his creation from the ravages of sin. One of the ravages of sin is corruption. God will protect his little ones from sin. If we are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is Perfect, then we too must protect life from sin. That’s why the message of the Assumption speaks to such topics as: capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion, infanticide, war, and embryonic stem cell research. The Assumption reminds us that God has made a preferential option for human life.
Not only does the Father protect the life of the son, but also the life of his creatures. Mary is a creature. She is not divine. It is good for God to have assumed her into heaven, to remind us that our lives have meaning and vallue to him. Therefore, they should have meaning and value to us.
The Assumption speaks about Mary, but most importantly, it speaks about God’s predilection for human life. In the Culture of Death, it is important to remind ourselves that God has plans for human life. Join the Brothers of Life and share the message in the same manner as St. Fracis.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
I will pray that many will see your good work and will be edified by your devotion to Our Lady. If people read Mary as a book on Jesus, they would not have such a problem with her and we would not have such a problem with the Culture of Death.