Mary was Assumed into Heaven
The Church teaches that Mary was assumed, body and soul, into Heaven, meaning that, at the consummation of her earthly life, God took her body and soul to Heaven. All the souls of the saved, at their death, will go to Heaven. It is not until Judgement Day that their souls will rejoin with their bodies – except for Mary. Mary was so pure and holy that the Lord did not allow her body to decay, but immediately upon the end of her life, when her soul separated from her body, he rejoined them. (We say “at the end of her life,” because there exists some discrepancy as to whether or not Mary actually died. She probably did, but the Church leaves this area open for interpretation.) Because the Dogma of the Assumption is a dogma, it is infallible, meaning that to be a Catholic in a State of Grace, one must believe this truth.
This can be a difficult teaching to swallow. Is it not a little too Christlike for Mary to have been assumed into Heaven, as Christ ascended into Heaven? How do we know this? What proof is there for this dogma?
Firstly, although Christ ascended into Heaven, Mary did not. She was assumed. Christ was the active agent in His Ascension, while Mary was the passive agent in her assumption. Christ the Lord ascended Himself. God assumed Mary. Because Christ ascended to Heaven of His own power, whereas Mary did not, we should not have any concern as to whether the Dogma of the Assumption means Catholics adore Mary. We do not. Yes, she is the most exalted and holiest creature ever to have existed and who will ever exist, but she is a creature nonetheless, whereas God is the Creator of all.
But while this Dogma squares with the rest of Christian Truth, it seems a bit outlandish to claim. There is indeed nowhere in the Bible where the Assumption is explicitly mentioned.
But if questioned about whether the Assumption is in Scripture, and thus whether it is true, the first thing we should do is to defend the Church’s authority, for this is an infallible teaching. The questioner is really questioning Church authority first and foremost. Well, we can first defined the Church teachings on the Deposit of Faith and… One of the Reasons why Sola Scriptura makes no sense is because scripture declares that whoever denies Church authority is cut off from the flock! “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Mt 18:17). We must obey all the Church’s teachings, without discrepancy. Moreover, because the Assumption is a dogma, all Catholics are binded under pain of mortal sin to assent to this teaching, in heart, mind, and soul.
Now, as to scripture, there is indeed no definitive word on the Assumption in scripture. But neither is there mention of many other truths in scripture which we know to be true. For example, the canon of scripture is not in scripture. There is no list or mention of what books are to be in scripture or not in it. However, we know that the books in the bible are the Word of God because of the Church’s authority. Christ gave the Church the power to bind and loose (see Mt 16:18), and the Holy Spirit descended on the infant Church at Pentecost, meaning that the Church had the authority to compile a canon of scripture, and that the Holy Spirit guided the Church, protecting her from error.
Since the Church has the authority to come to the knowledge of the truth in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, she can teach something as the Assumption. However, the Church also has direct evidence for this dogma. In Revelation 11-12 (and biblical chapters were added in the middle ages, so chapters do not necessarily divide topics), we see a woman, body and soul, in Heaven. At the end of Revelation 11, we read that “the ark of [God’s] covenant was seen within his temple” (Rev 11:19). The next verse is the beginning of Revelation 12:1, where we read that “a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev 12:1). Moreover, “she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (Rev 12:2-5). This woman is clothed – she has a body. She appears to be the ark of the covenant (Mary), and she is crowned with twelve stars (twelve being a recurrent symbol throughout the bible of the twelves tribes of Israel) suggesting she is the queen of the new Israel – all the baptized on earth. Thus, this woman is Mary, she is in heaven, and she has a body there. We know that when we die, our bodies decay, but our souls go either to eternal salvation, a purging period, or damnation, until they resurrect at the end of time. But if her body and soul are already united in Heaven, either her body reunited with her soul after her death but before the end of time (which has not come yet), or she was assumed body and soul into Heaven. God assumed Elijah and Enoch, two Old Testament figures, body and soul into Paradise (Christ had not resurrected yet), upon their death (see Gen 5:24, Heb 11:5, Sirach 44:16; 49:14, 2 Kings 2:11, 1 Mac 2:58). Enoch the Patriarch and Elijah the Prophet were both extremely holy people, but the Blessed Virgin Mary is far holier than both of them combined, because she alone (besides Christ) is without any original or personal sin. Therefore, if the Lord did not allow Enoch or Elijah’s body to decay, it makes sense that the Lord would not let the Virgin Mary’s body see earthly corruption.
Moreover, the vast majority of early Christians believed the assumption. Dr. Richard H. Bulzacchelli, a professor of theology at Aquinas College, notes that “in saying that Mary never ceases to be a virgin, the early Christians were saying that, in her giving birth to Christ, the whole structure of the cosmos was forever changed—that death no longer ruled over life but had been destroyed by it, and that the One to whom she gives birth is Life itself: True God from True God” (CSA). Mary’s perpetual virginity is inextricably bound up with her assumption. It is fitting that the unspotted womb which bore the Savior of the universe should not know decay.
St. Epiphanus defended the view that at the consummation of her earthly life, Mary was assumed, body and soul, into Heaven. He received no backlash from his contemporaries, including St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Ambrose, but even received assent from saints, including St. Ephrem. Throughout the centuries of Church history, there has been relative agreement on Mary’s bodily Assumption.
Furthermore, death is a punishment for sin, for only after the Fall does God punish Adam and Eve, saying: “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). Because Mary was conceived without Original Sin, she is not subject to the punishment of the Fall. Therefore, it is fitting that God assume her, body and soul, into Heaven.