Feast of the Assumption (15 August 2007)

The Assumption of the Virgin by El Greco, circa 1577
From the Medieval Saints Yahoo Group:

Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Also called in old liturgical books Pausatio, Nativitas (for heaven), Mors, Depositio, Dormitio S. Mariae.

According to St. John of Damascus: St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died (possibly at Ephesus) in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven.

Liturgical Color: White & Gold

Commemorated August 15

Instituted: The earliest references to the Assumption of Mary appear in the late 3rd century in Liber Requiei Mariae. The commemoration was possibly instituted at the Council of Ephesus in 431. According to the life of St. Theodosius (d. 529) it was celebrated in Palestine before the year 500, probably in August. In Egypt and Arabia, however, it was kept in January, and since the monks of Gaul adopted many usages from the Egyptian monks, we find this feast in Gaul in the sixth century, in January, under the title: Depositio, Assumptio, or Festivitas S. Mariae. At the time of Sergius I (700) this feast was one of the principal festivities in Rome; the procession started from the church of St. Hadrian. It was always a double of the first class and a Holy Day of obligation.

Themes & Motives: the happy departure of Mary from this life; the assumption of her body into heaven. Her acceptance into the glory of heaven is seen as the confirmation of the promise made by Jesus to all enduring Christians that they too will be received into paradise.

For six centuries the town of Elche in Spain has celebrated a Mystery Play in honor of the Assumption of Mary. The play has two acts; the first is performed on August 14, the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption; the second, on August 15, the feast day itself. The play, as described by UNESCO, is "a sacred musical drama of the death, assumption and crowning of the Virgin." According to a news report on TypicallySpanish.com, "It is performed by a cast of local people, all men or boys, and all of them amateurs, with a centuries-old text written in the Valencia language, with just one psalm and a few of the verses in Latin. The music employs Mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque melodies, with a choir of children to represent the voices of the Virgin Mary and the angels."

The Dormition of the Virgin by El Greco, before 1567
Dormition of the Holy Virgin
http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/feasts_e.htm#n17

The feast of the Dormition is the last great feast in the Church calendar year. It is preceded by a two week fast. The glorious lot of the Ever Blessed Virgin in the role of God's salvation of the world made all her life wonderful and exemplary.

After the Crucifixion of Christ, the Mother of God was taken to live in the house of her adopted son, the Apostle John. Tradition notes that even after the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, the Mother of God remained in Jerusalem, visiting those places where the Savior of the world preached, suffered and died. She did not want to leave the country that was dear and holy to her. When Caesar Herod Agrippa began to persecute the Church, both the pagans and the Jews, indignant at the respect the Mother of God was receiving from the Christians, wanted to kill her. It was during this time that she traveled with Apostle John to Ephesus. Church tradition has this as the time of her visit to Cyprus to Bishop Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead after four days, and to the Mount Athos. When the persecution ended, the Mother of God returned to Apostle John's house at Zion in Jerusalem.

Once when she went to the Mount of Olives to pray, Archangel Gabriel appeared and spoke of her approaching death. Upon returning home, she told Apostle John all that the Archangel spoke of and started preparing herself for her final day on earth. Friends and relatives gathered, and eleven of the apostles were miraculously transported from various parts of the world to her deathbed. They were all amazed seeing each other there. When the Apostle John explained that the Mother of God would soon be departing this world they understood why God had brought them together, and they became sad. But she comforted them saying: "Do not cry and darken my happiness with your sadness. I am going to my Son and your God, and you will bury my body and return each to your work." As the time of her death neared the room shone with a divine light, the roof disappeared, and a wondrous sight appeared before all. The Lord Jesus Christ descended from heaven surrounded by many angels. All looked upon this wondrous sight with awe and reverence, and when they approached her bed, the holy body of the Mother of God was radiant and a smell of incense pervaded the room.

The apostles carried the body of the Mother of God through the city to Gethsemane to be buried at her request in the tomb of her family and Joseph. They buried her body, closed the tomb with a stone and remained there at the site in prayer for three days. On the third day Apostle Thomas arrived and was very saddened he had been unable to take his leave of her when she had been alive. To make him feel better, the other apostles rolled away the stone to let him pay his respects to the body. But on entering the tomb, they found that the body was not there - only the winding sheet remained. They returned home to partake of a communal meal at which they always left a place for the Resurrected Lord. After the meal, they raised the bread left for Christ aloft and exclaimed "Lord, Jesus Christ, help us." And they heard a choir of angels, and when they looked up they saw the holy Ever-Virgin surrounded by angels. She hailed them, saying: "Rejoice, for I am always with you." Then the apostles were filled with joy, and instead of using the usual words, they exclaimed "Most holy Theotokos, help us." And now they understood and believed that upon the third day after her Dormition, the Mother of God had been resurrected.

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The Coronation of the Virgin by El Greco, circa 1603-05
THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY: A BELIEF SINCE APOSTOLIC TIMES
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/AOFMARY.HTM
Father Clifford Stevens

The Assumption is the oldest feast day of Our Lady, but we don't know how it first came to be celebrated. Its origin is lost in those days when Jerusalem was restored as a sacred city, at the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 285-337). By then it had been a pagan city for two centuries, ever since Emperor Hadrian (76-138) had leveled it around the year 135 and rebuilt it as in honor of Jupiter.

For 200 years, every memory of Jesus was obliterated from the city, and the sites made holy by His life, death and Resurrection became pagan temples.

After the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 336, the sacred sites began to be restored and memories of the life of Our Lord began to be celebrated by the people of Jerusalem. One of the memories about his mother centered around the "Tomb of Mary," close to Mount Zion, where the early Christian community had lived.

On the hill itself was the "Place of Dormition," the spot of Mary's "falling asleep," where she had died. The "Tomb of Mary" was where she was buried.

At this time, the "Memory of Mary" was being celebrated. Later it was to become our feast of the Assumption.

For a time, the "Memory of Mary" was marked only in Palestine, but then it was extended by the emperor to all the churches of the East. In the seventh century, it began to be celebrated in Rome under the title of the "Falling Asleep" ("Dormitio") of the Mother of God.

Soon the name was changed to the "Assumption of Mary," since there was more to the feast than her dying. It also proclaimed that she had been taken up, body and soul, into heaven.

That belief was ancient, dating back to the apostles themselves. What was clear from the beginning was that there were no relics of Mary to be venerated, and that an empty tomb stood on the edge of Jerusalem near the site of her death. That location also soon became a place of pilgrimage. (Today, the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition of Mary stands on the spot.)

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when bishops from throughout the Mediterranean world gathered in Constantinople, Emperor Marcian asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to bring the relics of Mary to Constantinople to be enshrined in the capitol. The patriarch explained to the emperor that there were no relics of Mary in Jerusalem, that "Mary had died in the presence of the apostles; but her tomb, when opened later . . . was found empty and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into heaven."

In the eighth century, St. John Damascene was known for giving sermons at the holy places in Jerusalem. At the Tomb of Mary, he expressed the belief of the Church on the meaning of the feast: "Although the body was duly buried, it did not remain in the state of death, neither was it dissolved by decay. . . . You were transferred to your heavenly home, O Lady, Queen and Mother of God in truth."

All the feast days of Mary mark the great mysteries of her life and her part in the work of redemption. The central mystery of her life and person is her divine motherhood, celebrated both at Christmas and a week later (Jan. 1) on the feast of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. The Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8) marks the preparation for that motherhood, so that she had the fullness of grace from the first moment of her existence, completely untouched by sin. Her whole being throbbed with divine life from the very beginning, readying her for the exalted role of mother of the Savior.

The Assumption completes God's work in her since it was not fitting that the flesh that had given life to God himself should ever undergo corruption. The Assumption is God's crowning of His work as Mary ends her earthly life and enters eternity. The feast turns our eyes in that direction, where we will follow when our earthly life is over.

The feast days of the Church are not just the commemoration of historical events; they do not look only to the past. They look to the present and to the future and give us an insight into our own relationship with God. The Assumption looks to eternity and gives us hope that we, too, will follow Our Lady when our life is ended.

The prayer for the feast reads: "All-powerful and ever-living God: You raised the sinless Virgin Mary, mother of your Son, body and soul, to the glory of heaven. May we see heaven as our final goal and come to share her glory."

In 1950, in the Apostolic Constitution , Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Assumption of Mary a dogma of the Catholic Church in these words: "The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heaven."

With that, an ancient belief became Catholic doctrine and the Assumption was declared a truth revealed by God.

Father Clifford Stevens writes from Tintern Monastery in Oakdale, Neb.
This article was taken from the July-August 1996 issue of "Catholic Heritage".

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More on the Assumption of Mary at:
http://www.churchyear.net/assumption.html

The Coronation of the Virgin by El Greco, circa 1591

See also "Tainted Nature's Solitary Boast"