‘Although the blessed Mary had already been called [to live apart] from this world, finally the passage of her life was completed, and all the apostles gathered from their particular regions at her house. When they heard that she must be taken from the world, they all kept watch with her. And behold, the Lord Jesus came with his angels, and after taking her soul he gave it to the angel Michael and left. At dawn the apostles lifted her body on a bed, placed it in a tomb, and kept guard over it, in anticipation of the arrival of the Lord. And behold, again the Lord approached them. He took the holy body in a cloud and ordered it to be brought to Paradise, where, after regaining her soul, Mary now rejoices with his elect and enjoys the goodness of eternity that will never perish.’
- St Gregory of Tours, Trans. Van Dam, Raymond Glory of the Martyrs
Why do you seek in the tomb one who has been assumed to the heavenly courts? Why do you make me responsible for not keeping her? I was powerless to go against the divine commands. That sacred and holy body, leaving the winding-sheet behind, filled me full of sweet fragrance, sanctified me by its contact, and fulfilled the divine scheme, and was then assumed, angels and archangels and all the heavenly powers escorting it.2
St John of Damascus, Three Sermons on the Dormition of the Virgin, 1898
The Assumption belongs to the ancient Tradition of the Church, attested in early Christian writings and later received into the liturgical life of East and West. The precise manner of the Blessed Virgin’s passage — whether she first entered death or was taken alive — has been understood differently within the Church. The essential confession is that, when her earthly life was complete, the Lord received His Mother into Heaven, body and soul.
The Virgin’s Assumption expresses the fitting honour given to the one who bore the Logos in the flesh. The tradition of St John of Damascus holds that she did not undergo bodily corruption, for her womb had carried Christ, the conqueror of death. Through the ministry of the angels, her whole person was brought into the joy of God and the communion of the saints.
Mary’s life also reveals the vocation of every believer. She was uniquely chosen as Mother of God and as the living Tabernacle of the Lord; yet, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, she stands within the Church as its purest human example. When Christ entrusts the Beloved Disciple to her — “Behold thy son” — her motherhood opens toward all who belong to Him. No one can share her singular office as Mother of God, but all may follow her as a Temple of the Holy Spirit.
Mary remains wholly human, though prepared by Grace for her singular calling. Her bodily entrance into Heaven anticipates the promised resurrection, when humanity is restored whole in body and soul. In her Assumption, the final end of the Work is shown: unbroken communion with God, forever.
St Thomas teaches in his Summa Theologiæ, regarding the sinlessness of the Virgin Mary:
God so prepares and endows those, whom He chooses for some particular office, that they are rendered capable of fulfilling it, according to 2 Cor. 3:6: (Who) hath made us fit ministers of the New Testament.
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