Mary's Assumption and the Latest Scandal

The sickening revelations just keep on coming; 70 years worth of credible allegations, settlements and secrets. Some of the details are so revolting they cry to Heaven for vengeance. I can feel helpless, unless I go to the Lord in a spirit of reparation, to offset, in union with the Eucharistic Jesus and his infinitely precious sacrifice, some of that horrible debt of justice. I created a prayer guide for personal or group Eucharistic Adoration in Reparation which you can download and copy. (It is a bit long, so you might prefer to just download it to a device rather than print it all out!)

I can't help but relate the sins committed in and against the body to the feast we celebrate tomorrow: Mary's Assumption, body and soul, into Heaven. It is not only a dogma of faith that Mary was taken up into Heaven with her human (and now glorified) body: it is a dogma of faith that is surprisingly unknown to many Catholics, even Sunday Massgoers, that our own bodies are destined for the same kind of resurrection and glorification. When Paul had to scold the Corinthians about their lax sexual morals, he did so in the light of the resurrection of the body: "The body is not for immorality: it is for the Lord, and [amazingly] the Lord is for the body" (1 Cor 6:13).

In the words of Pope John Paul (July 9, 1997):

Mary’s Assumption reveals the nobility and dignity of the human body. In the face of the profanation and debasement to which modern society frequently subjects the female body, the mystery of the Assumption proclaims the supernatural destiny and dignity of every human body, called by the Lord to become an instrument of holiness and to share in His glory.

Mary entered into glory because she welcomed the Son of God in her virginal womb and in her heart. By looking at her, the Christian learns to discover the value of his own body and to guard it as a temple of God, in expectation of the resurrection. The Assumption, a privilege granted to the Mother of God, thus has immense value for the life and destiny of humanity.

St Paul and the Assumption

One of the stickiest issues related to today's Solemnity of the Assumption is the ecumenical conflict over the dogma itself. Bible Christians just don't see where we got this, since it is not directly testified to in the Scriptures, their only source of doctrine. Surely, if Mary had been taken into heaven before the Apostles' eyes, as the legend says, that would have made it into the Bible! Can you imagine St. Paul not testifying to something like that?

Given that today's second reading is from St. Paul, it would seem to be a weak point (if the upper-case T Tradition were not so unanimous in what it tells us about the end of Mary's earthly life). But this morning two very different thoughts came to me.

For one, the (lower-case t) tradition says that Mary lived into her early 70's. That means that she would have still been alive during most of Paul's ministry. He couldn't very well be expected to write about a fact that hadn't happened yet. That same tradition also suggests that Mary's death and Assumption took place not that long before Paul wrote the letter to the Romans. This letter contains Paul's most highly developed thought about Christian hope, and the implications of Christ's resurrection for all of us.

I mean, his very earliest letters, 1 Thessalonians, for example, use standard apocalyptic language and express Christian hope in a really rudimentary way—correct but undeveloped, and vague enough that a 2^nd Thessalonians was necessary. By the time we get to Romans, Paul is saying that Christ's resurrection set the “pattern,” and everyone who is conformed to his death will share in the likeness of his resurrection. This is the very meaning of the Assumption.

Is it too outlandish to suggest that Mary's actual, historical Assumption (or, as the Eastern Churches call it, “Dormition”) was a further gift of Divine Revelation in which the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 16:12-14) taught the Apostles that the Risen Christ really was meant to be the “firstfruits” of the Resurrection, the “firstborn” of many brothers and sisters, and not a unique example of God's power and grace?

What if those very passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul spells out the implications of the Resurrection of Christ were the fruit of Paul's meditative reflection on the “experience” of Mary's unexpectedly anticipated entrance into full glory with her Son?

It is really inspiring to me today to imagine that as Paul wrote those hope-filled passages in Romans 6-8, he was reflecting on what God had done not only for his divine Son (the one who, being in the nature of God, did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at), but also for the one who was his first and best handmaid.