The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
and my soul shall be joyful in my God:
for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation:
and with the robe of justice he hath covered me,
as a bridegroom decked with a crown,
and as a bride adorned with her jewels.
Isaiah 61, 10
At that time, I will bring you home,
at the time when I will gather you together;
yea, I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes, says the Lord.
Zephaniah 3, 20
I will perpetuate your memory through all generations;
therefore the nations will praise you forever and ever.
Psalm 45, 17
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
then we thought we were dreaming.
Our mouths were filled with laughter;
our tongues sang for joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us;
Oh, how happy we were.
Psalm 126, 1-3
And Mary said:
My soul does magnify the Lord.
And my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
For he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaid;
behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Because he that is mighty has done great things to me;
and holy is his name.
Luke 1, 46-49
ἰδοὺ γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν μακαριοῦσί με πᾶσαι αἱ γενεαί
Sacred Scripture
often confirms what belongs to Catholic Tradition using words or expressions
employed by the authors of the Biblical texts under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. These help the Church better understand what God has intended to
fully reveal to the faithful in matters of faith and morals, notwithstanding
whether the authors were aware of the Divine intention (sensus
plenior). Sometimes, the choice of words and phrases extends beyond the primary
context of the matter, as with prophecies. Isaiah 7:14 is a prime
example, which Matthew himself quotes in his gospel when bearing witness to
Christ’s incarnation (Mt 1:23).
In her Canticle of
Praise or Magnificat, Mary speaks prophetically when she proclaims: “Behold,
from henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed.” What non-Catholic
Christians generally understand Mary means by being blessed (makaria) is that she has been highly favored to be the mother of Jesus. In its primary
signification, the prophecy has been realized. Unless Mary is the mother of the
Lord in his humanity, by conceiving and giving birth to him, there is no reason
for Christians to rejoice in Mary’s happiness for her sake because of this
singular favor that God has granted her. Yet we are still left with
the prophecy’s secondary fulfillment, which the evangelist alludes to in the
following verse: “Because the Almighty has done great things to me, and holy is
His name.” These great things or privileges Mary refers to concerning her
blessed state relate to her Divine Maternity and, by this singular favor, extend
from it.
The original Greek
word Luke uses for being pronounced blessed (makarizó / μακαρίζω) in the given
context can be interpreted as meaning “to be pronounced blessed because of
enjoying privileges that extend from God’s favor,” that is the Divine
Maternity. * Thus, the “great things” that God has done for Mary are blessings
that rest on her being the Mother of God (Isa 7:14; Lk 1:35, 43). Future
generations of all the Christian faithful shall not simply honor Mary for
having been chosen from among all women to be the mother of Jesus. Still, they shall also rejoice with her for the special privileges she has received by
being our Lord’s mother.
This Greek word for
blessed is more than an honorary term. It also serves as a benediction that
promotes goodness and well-being, which Mary particularly possesses because she
is the Mother of the Divine Messiah. The word connotes how she personally stands
in her relationship with God in the supernatural life of grace. All future
generations shall acknowledge blessings that, by Mary’s maternal right,
exclusively belong to her in the order of divine grace. These are, in fact, privileges that are closely tied to Mary’s association with her divine Son in
his work of redemption, another essential reason she was chosen to be his
mother. Jesus was not “made of a woman” only to acquire his humanity from her
(Gal 4:4; Lk 2:35).
Protestant Biblical
scholar Donald G. Dawes, in his exegesis of Luke 1:48, informs us that this word for blessed (makaria) is “more than a polite honorific term” and was
used in Patristic literature to characterize the martyrs. He states: “The highest
expression of their blessedness was in the possibility of their ascension into
heaven to dwell in the immediate presence of God” (The Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin in Ecumenical Perspective). In other words, the martyrs aren’t
simply blessed for having sacrificed their lives for Christ in faith; no more
than Mary is blessed only for having consented faithfully to be the mother of the
Lord. What is more important from an eschatological point of view is the final
consummation of these acts of faith informed by charity and grace.
In a similar vein,
when Jesus prophetically says, “Blessed (makaria) are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God,” the highest expression of their being blessed is seeing
God, which results from their being pure in heart (Mt 5:8). Therefore, the gift
of the Virgin Mary’s divine motherhood isn’t the highest expression of her
being blessed or “happy” in the eyes of future generations of believers, though
her blessed or happy state ultimately stems from her being the Mother of God
and our Divine Messiah.
This prophetic verse
in the Gospel of Luke is vital to the integrity of the Catholic dogmas of the
Immaculate Conception and its corollary, the glorious Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, body and soul, into Heaven. Here, we see Mary’s role in
the Incarnation, an essential part of God’s plan in the economy of
salvation, and the final consummation of her salvation in a singular way
because of her Divine call and moral participation in collaboration with God.
What our Blessed Lady has been graced with is something all future generations
shall exceedingly rejoice in for her sake alone, since she alone has been
granted this privilege for being the Mother of God and our co-Redemptrix or
“Mother with (cum) the Redeemer” (Lk 2:34-35).
Mary shall not be
pronounced blessed for simply having been faithful and died and gone to heaven
along with all the other faithful departed. This is the hope of all Christians
who die in a state of sanctifying grace. The redemption of their bodies on the
Last Day is a divine truth that has been manifested and prefigured by the
resurrection of Christ (1 Cor 15:20-23). On the other hand, Our Lady is speaking prophetically about her, of a form of bodily redemption that applies exclusively to her because of her unique personal relationship with God
in the hypostatic order of Christ’s incarnation.
Thus, the secondary
fulfillment of Mary’s prophecy is eschatologically found in her Assumption. The
highest expression of her being blessed is the glorious redemption of her body, united with her immaculate soul in the Beatific Vision of God. All future generations
shall pronounce Mary blessed for having received this pre-eminent favor that no
other human being shall ever receive by God’s gratuitous grace, not only
because she is the Mother of God, but also because of the other extended
privilege or “great thing” God favored her with because of her Divine
Motherhood – her Immaculate Conception and freedom from every stain of sin.
Finally, Luke 1:48
reads: “For behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” In
the original Greek, the word “Behold” idŏu (ιδου) is a demonstrative particle,
with no exact equivalent in the English language. Unlike the Hebrew term hinnēh, Greek words often enliven a narrative by introducing
something new or extraordinary. It is frequently used to emphasize the importance of
something great. (See, for example, Lk 1:31; 2:10-11, KJB). For the faithful,
there is nothing extraordinary in the fundamental Christian belief of a saint
having died and gone to Heaven, at least not for them. What is extraordinary or
unique, however, is that the Blessed Virgin Mary has been gloriously
assumed body and soul into Heaven because of her Divine Maternity and exemption
from every stain of sin: original and personal. All the other departed saints
in Heaven must wait until Christ returns in glory for the redemption of their
bodies, while they remain in repose apart from the holy souls until the general
Resurrection at the end of this age (Rev 20:4-5).
Hence, the
connotations of “Behold” include a renewed and singular state of being
for Mary rather than a change of circumstance in her life that occurs at the
Annunciation. The word also carries the weight of a divine ordinance and points to something of great prophetic importance that God wills to draw
our attention to. Thus, all generations of Christians shall not pronounce Mary
blessed simply because she was chosen to be the mother of their Lord Jesus. The
faithful shall also consider the “great things” God has done for
her, namely those privileges which extend from that one supreme privilege.
My beloved spoke and said to me,
“Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
come with me.
See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.”
Song of Solomon 2, 10-11
EARLY SACRED TRADITION
“He was the ark formed of
incorruptible wood. For by this is signified
that His tabernacle was exempt from putridity and corruption.”
St. Hippolytus, Orations Inillud, Dominus pascit me
(ante A.D. 235)
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If the Holy Virgin had died
and was buried, her falling asleep would have been surrounded
with honour,
death would have found her pure, and her crown would have been a virginal
one…Had she been martyred according to what is written: ‘Thine own soul a sword
shall
pierce’, then she would shine gloriously among the martyrs, and her holy
body would have
been declared blessed; for by her, did light come to the
world.”
St. Epiphanius, Panarion, 78:23
(A.D. 377)
“But Mary, the glorious
Mother of Christ, who is believed
to be a virgin both before and after she bore him, has,
as we said above, been translated into paradise, amid the singing
of the angelic choirs, whither the Lord preceded her.”
St. Gregory of Tours
Eight Books of Miracles, 1:8
[A.D. 584]
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“It was fitting … that the
most holy body of Mary, God-bearing body, receptacle of God,
divinized,
incorruptible, illuminated by divine grace and full glory … should be entrusted
to
the earth for a little while and raised up to heaven in glory, with her soul
pleasing to God.”
St. Theoteknos of Livias
Homily on the Assumption
[ca. A.D. 600]
“You are she who, as it is
written, appears in beauty,
and your virginal body is all holy, all chaste, entirely the
dwelling place of God, so that it is henceforth completely exempt
from dissolution into dust. Though still human, it is changed into
the heavenly life of incorruptibility, truly living and glorious,
undamaged and sharing in perfect life.”
St. Germanus of Constantinople, Sermon I
[A.D. 683]
“It was fitting that the
she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own
body
free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had
carried the
Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine
tabernacles. It was fitting that the
spouse, whom the Father had taken to
himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was
fitting that she, who had
seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into
her heart the sword
of sorrow which she had escaped when giving birth to him, should look
upon him
as he sits with the Father, It was fitting that God’s Mother should possess
what
belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as
the Mother and
as the handmaid of God.”
St. John Damascene
Dormition of Mary
[A.D. 697]
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