THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY AND HOPE IN A TROUBLED WORLD

 

THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY AND HOPE IN A TROUBLED WORLD

On Tuesday we will celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a holy day of obligation, with Mass at 8:15 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.  In honor of our 150^th anniversary celebration, which we initiate with this feast, we will enjoy breakfast in the Parish Life Center following the Mass.  The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed in the chapel at 9:45 a.m.

Pope Pius XII issued the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus (“The Most Bountiful God”) on November 1, 1950.  It defines the dogma of the Assumption of Mary into heaven, body and soul.  A dogma is a divinely revealed truth declared as such by the highest teaching office of the Church, such as an ecumenical council or the Pope himself.  As divinely revealed truth, it is infallible and all Catholics are bound to believe it.

In the beginning of the Constitution Pope Pius XII indicates that “our pontificate is weighed down by ever so many cares, anxieties, and troubles, by reason of very severe calamities that have taken place and by reason of the fact that many have strayed away from truth and virtue.”  By “calamities” he probably means the Second World War, the Holocaust, and Communist oppression in Eastern Europe.  Pius XII does not state this but perhaps it is implied: these calamities would not have existed if so many had not “strayed away from truth and virtue” by defection from the faith. 

The pope reminds us, however, that our faith always offers hope.  “The most bountiful God, who is almighty, the plan of whose providence rests on wisdom and love, tempers, in the secret purpose of his own mind, the sorrows of peoples and individual men by means of joys that he interposes in their lives from time to time, in such a way that, under different conditions and in different ways, all things may work together unto good for those who love Him…[W]e are greatly consoled to see that, while the Catholic faith is being professed publicly and vigorously, piety towards the Virgin Mother of God is flourishing and daily growing more fervent, and that almost everywhere on earth it is showing indications of a better and holier life.”  In their affection for Mary the minds of the faithful were being “aroused to a more assiduous consideration of her prerogatives.”  This is one of the reasons that Pius XII felt that it was the right time to solemnly proclaim the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the Constitution the Holy Father makes a connection between the proclamation by Pope Pius IX of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and his proclamation of the Assumption in 1950, writing that “These two privileges are closely bound to one another.”  Due to her Immaculate Conception Mary was not subject to the consequence of sin, which is the corruption of the grave.  Contemplation of the Immaculate Conception led more and more faithful to desire that Mary’s Assumption into heaven be proclaimed with the same solemnity.  All the bishops of the world almost unanimously in 1946 responded “yes” to the pope’s inquiry on whether he should make belief in the Assumption an essential element of the Catholic faith.    

Belief in the Assumption of Mary increases our hope for the resurrection and has deep roots in Christian tradition.  Strong evidence for Mary’s Assumption is the fact that no one has ever claimed to have her relics.  This in an age when the bones of the martyrs of the Colosseum in Rome were immediately gathered by the Christian witnesses after their death.  Like Christ, who ascended in body and soul into heaven, Mary left no relics of her body because it was carried off to heaven (you can find an excellent article on the historical evidence of the Assumption by Tim Staples at the Catholic Answers website, “The Assumption of Mary in history”). 

Before the proclamation of the dogma in 1950 there were many churches and chapels throughout the Church which honored Mary’s Assumption.  The first church in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was consecrated on Spring Garden Street under this title was in 1845.  In that church the future saint of Philadelphia, St. Katharine Drexel, was baptized in 1858 (unfortunately the church closed in 1995.)  In 1873 our parish was the second parish in the Archdiocese which had the privilege of adopting Mary under the title of the Assumption.  The third parish with this august name was founded in Feasterville in 1950, the year of the proclamation by Pius XII.  We are truly blessed to honor Mary’s Assumption into heaven by our very name.  Let us ask her to pray to her Son that we may be worthy of such honor!