The Assumption!

[JP_Marat]

I can get you ECFs echoing stuff in the Protoevangelium if I need to, but you can browse the book yourself. If modern “plausibility” is your criteria for identifying things of God, then you probably DO reject the Resurrection since people who are dead and rising 3 days later “hardly sounds like an accurate historical account, does it.”

RESPONSE:

What “book” are you referring to? And what Early Church Father ever claimed that the four events taken from the Proevangelium I listed actually occurred?

 

[thistle]

RESPONSE:

What “book” are you referring to? And what Early Church Father ever claimed that the four events taken from the Proevangelium I listed actually occurred?

I notice you still have not answered Robbison’s question:

“Do you believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus?”

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Was assumed bodily - that is the infallible teaching of the Church. Whether this happened before or after death is not infallibly defined.

Blessings,

Brian

I disagree. I say that the fact that Mary died is infallibly defined.

Look in Paragraph 20 of Munificentissimus Deus, which tells us that “the DEAD BODY of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt.” That can’t be true unless she was dead.

 

[Robbinson]

I disagree. I say that the fact that Mary died is infallibly defined.

Look in Paragraph 20 of Munificentissimus Deus, which tells us that “the DEAD BODY of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt.” That can’t be true unless she was dead.

That’s interesting. Here is the Catholic Answers website discussion:

"The Church has never formally defined whether she died or not, and the integrity of the doctrine of the Assumption would not be impaired if she did not in fact die, but the almost universal consensus is that she did die. Pope Pius XII, in Munificentissimus Deus (1950), defined that Mary, “after the completion of her earthly life” (note the silence regarding her death), “was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven.”

I see what you mean re: para 20 - perhaps the CA view is based upon the ultimate conclusion of the Pope in para 44.

Blessings,

Brian

 

[Peter_Dawson]

That’s interesting. Here is the Catholic Answers website discussion:

"The Church has never formally defined whether she died or not, and the integrity of the doctrine of the Assumption would not be impaired if she did not in fact die, but the almost universal consensus is that she did die. Pope Pius XII, in Munificentissimus Deus (1950), defined that Mary, “after the completion of her earthly life” (note the silence regarding her death), “was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven.”

I’m wondering if there is a translation issue as you suggest it refers to her “dead” body - and this Catholic Answers quote expressly suggests otherwise.

Blessings,

Brian

In my opinion, many Catholics want it to be the case that Mary did not die so much that they blind themselves to express, infallible Church teaching.

 

[NotWorthy]

In my opinion, many Catholics want it to be the case that Mary did not die so much that they blind themselves to express, infallible Church teaching.

… except for the fact that it hasn’t been infallibly defined. The Church allows both beliefs.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

… except for the fact that it hasn’t been infallibly defined. The Church allows both beliefs.

Prove it.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Prove it.

Sheesh.

Ever read MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS?

---

1. For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, 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.

There’s a REASON the Church phrased it this way instead of simply saying “having died” or “after her death”.

 

[NotWorthy]

  			Originally Posted by **NotWorthy** 					[forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=5938456#post5938456) 				
  		*.... except  for the fact that it hasn't been infallibly defined.  The Church allows both beliefs.*

Prove it.

Ok. From the following website:

Although probably not unknown in the early Church, the earliest references to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary appear in the 4th (or possibly late 3rd) century in Liber Requiei Mariae (The Book of Mary’s Repose), and in the writings of a Bishop Meliton. Some of the Church Fathers believed that the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) was assumed while still alive, others that she was assumed after she had died.** Both views are permitted under the infallible definition of Pius XII.** St. John of Damascus (d. AD 755) relates a tradition where, during the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), the emperor Marcian and his wife wished to find the body of Mary. He tells how all the apostles had seen her death, but her tomb was empty upon inspection.

 

[thistle]

I disagree. I say that the fact that Mary died is infallibly defined.

Look in Paragraph 20 of Munificentissimus Deus, which tells us that “the DEAD BODY of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt.” That can’t be true unless she was dead.

You are wrong. What is infallibly declared in this document is the ASSUMPTION of Mary. There is no infallible declaration in this document that says she died first (although I happen to believe she did).
Para 20 which you refer to is firstly part of the preamble leading up to the Assumption declaration and secondly it is not stating that is the Church position but the view of some of the early Church Fathers (mentioned in paras 21 and 22).

Para 44 is the actual infallible declaration of the Assumption. Nothing prior to para 44 is infallibly declared.

Some people are of the view that the expression “having completed the course of her earthly life” means she died first. This expression is open to either death or no death prior to Assumption and I think the Church deliberately phrased it so.
The Church has not taken a view on Mary’s death or no death before Assumption and frankly it is not relevant.

 

[JP_Marat]

… except for the fact that it hasn’t been infallibly defined. The Church allows both beliefs.

RESPONSE:

“Allow” beliefs?

 

[JP_Marat]

JP, I’m curious. Do you believe that all the stories of Exodus happened? Did Moses really part the water? Did the ground swallow up Korah and his rebellious fellows? Did the Levites slay 3000 fellow Israelites?

RESPONSE:

1. Only a small group of Hebrews migrated out of Egypt, so few in fact that there is no mention in Egyptian records.
2. No. But they may have waded across the Reed Sea.
3. Probably not.
4. Maybe. But probably an exageration. When was it written?

 

[JP_Marat]

I can get you ECFs echoing stuff in the Protoevangelium if I need to, but you can browse the book yourself. If modern “plausibility” is your criteria for identifying things of God, then you probably DO reject the Resurrection since people who are dead and rising 3 days later “hardly sounds like an accurate historical account, does it.”

RESPONSE:

That’s right. But taking the imaginary step of saying, many years after the fact, that it seems that someone who is dead is still alive in our memories, to saying many years after the fact that someone who is dead was still alive (briefly) isn’t realy a very big step, is it?

That’s what folklore is all about!

 

[JP_Marat]

You are wrong. What is infallibly declared in this document is the ASSUMPTION of Mary. There is no infallible declaration in this document that says she died first (although I happen to believe she did).
Para 20 which you refer to is firstly part of the preamble leading up to the Assumption declaration and secondly it is not stating that is the Church position but the view of some of the early Church Fathers (mentioned in paras 21 and 22).

Para 44 is the actual infallible declaration of the Assumption. Nothing prior to para 44 is infallibly declared.

Some people are of the view that the expression “having completed the course of her earthly life” means she died first. This expression is open to either death or no death prior to Assumption and I think the Church deliberately phrased it so.
The Church has not taken a view on Mary’s death or no death before Assumption and frankly it is not relevant.

RESPONSE:

Perhaps you overlooked the fact the the “infallible” decree on papal “infallibility” forbids any pope to create "new’ doctrine not in the “deposit of faith” which was completed with the apostles.

Vatican I, 4th Session

"For the holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter **not so **that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles."

Unless a teaching exists in the deposit of faith, **it can not be **infallibly proclaimed. Pope Pius XII violated this restriction and raised a legend created in the fourth century to supposedly infallible status.

Read the the infallible ex cathedra statement itself and find any proof that the Assumption exists in the deposit of faith. There is no such evidence.

The Assumption of Mary into Heaven
by Father William G. Most

Evidence for the Assumption

“There had been a problem of how the Pope could define the Assumption. There seemed to be **nothing in Scripture **on it, and what things there were in the Tradition of the Fathers seemed to come not from an apostolic origin, but from some apocryphal stories that circulated chiefly beginning in the fourth century.”

 

[JP_Marat]

You are wrong. What is infallibly declared in this document is the ASSUMPTION of Mary. There is no infallible declaration in this document that says she died first (although I happen to believe she did).
Para 20 which you refer to is firstly part of the preamble leading up to the Assumption declaration and secondly it is not stating that is the Church position but the view of some of the early Church Fathers (mentioned in paras 21 and 22).

Para 44 is the actual infallible declaration of the Assumption. Nothing prior to para 44 is infallibly declared.

Some people are of the view that the expression “having completed the course of her earthly life” means she died first. This expression is open to either death or no death prior to Assumption and I think the Church deliberately phrased it so.
The Church has not taken a view on Mary’s death or no death before Assumption and frankly it is not relevant.

RESPONSE:

No paragraph 20 doesn’t. You have to read all the words:

“They Fathers and Doctors of the Church] offered more profound explanations of its meaning and nature, bringing out into sharper light the fact that this feast shows, not only that the dead body of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt, but that she gained a triumph out of death”

The pope himself isn’t proclaiming this as infallible.

 

[NotWorthy]

RESPONSE:

“Allow” beliefs?

That’s a good way to define it. If you have a better way of defining, I’d like to hear it.

By “allow beliefs”, you can posit that Mary died and was assumed, or that she was assumed before her death.

I teach an adult class at our church, for example. I can teach in the class that I believe Mary died and then was assumed (which is what I believe). Someone can tell me that he believes she was assumed prior to her death. As an adult teacher, I can’t tell him that, no, he is wrong in his thinking (because the Church allows that belief).

But if someone says in my class that Jesus didn’t really die, He was just in a coma. I can tell that person that this goes against the Church’s teaching and that he is wrong in this thought process.

So, while this same person is “allowed” to believe whatever in the world he wants to, he just can’t through his opinions out and expect the Church’s teaching to back him up.

 

[NotWorthy]

RESPONSE:

1. Only a small group of Hebrews migrated out of Egypt, so few in fact that there is no mention in Egyptian records.
2. No. But they may have waded across the Reed Sea.
3. Probably not.
4. Maybe. But probably an exageration. When was it written?

How does the worlds greatest army drown in a swamp? And why would Solomon build his navy in the same swamp.

Both of these bodies of water are called the same thing in the Old Testament

• *Yam Suph: *Sea (of) Reeds = body of water on the border of Egypt; mentioned fourteen times in the Pentateuch (Ex 10:19; 13:18; 15:4, 22; 23:31; Num 14:25; 21:4; 14; 33:10, 11; Dt 1:1, 40; 2:1; 11:4) and the sea where King Solomon kept his navy (1 Kng 9:26). This body of water is usually identified as the sea dividing Egypt and Arabia and its two arms: the Gulf of Suez (on the Egyptian side of the Sinai Peninsula) and the Gulf of Aqaba (between Sinai and Arabia). The Greek Septuagint scholars translated the Hebrew *yam *(sea) *suph *(reeds) as *Erythran Thallessa (Thallasan): *“Red Sea,” a translation that was repeated in St. Jerome’s 4th century AD Latin Vulgate. There are several passages in Scripture that identify the Gulf of Aqaba as the Yam Suph (the name “Yam Suph” is found in Scripture over 20 times; i.e., see: Ex 23:31; Dt 1:40; 2:1; Judg 11:16; 1 Kng 9:26; Jer 49:21).

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Sorry, friends, but I disagree with all here who say that Mary’s death is not infallibly declared in MD. MD is clearly the most authoritative source. Where does MD say, “It is not being infallibly declared that Mary died.”? It doesn’t. We can’t just blithely declare non-teaching that which is taught.

In my opinion, all here who deny that Mary died are denying the teaching of the Magisterium.

 

[thistle]

Sorry, friends, but I disagree with all here who say that Mary’s death is not infallibly declared in MD. MD is clearly the most authoritative source. Where does MD say, “It is not being infallibly declared that Mary died.”? It doesn’t. We can’t just blithely declare non-teaching that which is taught.

In my opinion, all here who deny that Mary died are denying the teaching of the Magisterium.

Your opinion is wrong.
The infallible declaration is on the Assumption of Mary and not whether she died first or not.

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION OF POPE PIUS XII

MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS

DEFINING THE DOGMA OF THE ASSUMPTION

November 1, 1950

 

[JP_Marat]

That’s a good way to define it. If you have a better way of defining, I’d like to hear it.

By “allow beliefs”, you can posit that Mary died and was assumed, or that she was assumed before her death.

I teach an adult class at our church, for example. I can teach in the class that I believe Mary died and then was assumed (which is what I believe). Someone can tell me that he believes she was assumed prior to her death. As an adult teacher, I can’t tell him that, no, he is wrong in his thinking (because the Church allows that belief).

But if someone says in my class that Jesus didn’t really die, He was just in a coma. I can tell that person that this goes against the Church’s teaching and that he is wrong in this thought process.

So, while this same person is “allowed” to believe whatever in the world he wants to, he just can’t through his opinions out and expect the Church’s teaching to back him up.

RESPONSE:

No. I was surprised by the claim that Catholics were “allowed” to believe something. I thought that we were taught what we were to believe. That only works, by the way, if you believe that the person telling you knows what he is talking about. Or that he has some self-proclaimed “authority” no doubt from the Holy Spirit.

And I’m afraid that if you consult Catholic teaching, you will find that anyone born without “original sin” still possesses his/her “preternatural” gifts among with is freedom from death. In short, they can’t die. Somebody in “authority” thought up that oneup too. You do believe all that, don’t you?