Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated every August 15, which falls on Monday this year.

The Feast commemorates the glorious moment when the Blessed Mother was taken up body and soul into the glory of Heaven at the end of her life (a foretaste of our own bodily resurrection at the end of time.) She is the only human being granted this singular privilege as the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because it signifies the Blessed Virgin's passing into eternal life, it is the most important of all Marian feasts.

Pope Pius XII defined the Dogma of the Assumption on November 1, 1950. As a dogma, the Assumption is a required belief of all Catholics; anyone who publicly dissents from the dogma, Pope Pius declared, "has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith."

Scripture does not give an account of Mary's Assumption into Heaven. But belief that Mary, without dying or shortly after death, has been taken up into Heaven with her body and her soul has been part of the teaching of the Catholic Church since the earliest centuries of Christianity. That early Christian believed in Mary's Assumption is proven in the lack of her relics, empty tomb, and quotes from early Christians.

The Feast of the Assumption gives each of us great hope as we contemplate this one facet of the beautiful woman of faith, our Blessed Mother Mary moves us by example and prayer to grow in God's grace, to be receptive to His will, to convert our lives through sacrifice and penance, and seek the everlasting union in the Heavenly kingdom. This Feast confirms us in the virtue of hope, whereby we seek holiness of life in the midst of our ordinary duties.

Catholics are encouraged to go to Mass on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother, although it is no longer a holy day of obligation in the Church here in the Philippines.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!