• 15 August 2020, Saturday

  (Liturgical Color: White)

  
  

  
  

  Solemnity of the Assumption

  
  

  Cycle A - Year II

  
  

  
  

  Readings:

  
  

  First Reading:        Revelation 11:19-12:1-6, 10

  Second Reading:   1 Corinthians 15:20-27

  
  

  Gospel:  Please Read  Luke 1:39-56.  Mary visits Elizabeth

  
  

  
  

  Our Holy Mother Church teaches that when Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus Christ,  died, her body was not subjected to the usual process of physical decay but was "assumed" into heaven and reunited with her soul.

  
  

  The Assumption of the Blessed Mother Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas.  The other three are her "Divine Motherhood", "Perpetual Virginity",  and "Immaculate Conception.  

  
  

  A dogma in the Catholic Church is defined as "a truth revealed by God which the Magisterium of the Church declared as binding" for all the faithful to believe and accept.  A dogma may also be solemnly promulgated by the College of Bishops along with the Pope at an ecumenical council, or by the Pope alone when speaking in a statement "ex cathedra" (meaning, "from the chair" of Peter).  Because it is infallibly defined, it calls for the definitive assent of the faithful.

  
  

  In the Apostolic Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, Pope Pius XII proclaimed on November 1, 1950 the Assumption of Mary a dogma of the Catholic Church in these words: "We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma that the Immaculate Motherhood of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory."

  
  

  
  

  The Assumption completes God's work in Mary 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.

  
  

  Ascension of Jesus vs. Mary's Assumption:

  
  

  We may ask what is the difference between our Lord's Ascension and Mary's Assumption into heaven?

  
  

  The answer is that our Lord Jesus Christ by His own power ascended into heaven.  But Mary was assumed or taken up into heaven by God.  She did not do it under her own power because she has none.

  
  

  Prayer:

  
  

  Almighty and ever-living God, who assumed the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of Your Son, body and soul into heavenly glory, grant we pray, that, always attentive to the things that are above, we may merit to be sharers of her glory.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.        

  
  

  Ad Jesum per Mariam!

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