The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a major feast day for the Catholic Church, and it is usually considered a Holy Day of Obligation which would mean that we would all need to go to Mass on Monday, but the Bishops of the United States tell us that if Holy Day of Obligation falls after a Sunday then no one is obliged to go to Mass. The feast is actually fairly new, being established by Pope Puis XII in 1950. To quote Pope Puis XII in his apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus (the most bountiful God), “By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” This statement is considered dogma. In the Catholic Church dogma is, "a truth revealed by God, which the magisterium of the Church declared as binding." This essentially means that if you say that you are a Catholic then you must believe in this. This is very important because we have no actual account of the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is through God that Pope Pius XII was able to state with his Papal Authority that the Virgin Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven.
Pope Pius backs his stance of the Assumption based on scripture. In 1Corinthians 15:54 St. Paul writes, “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’” In this scripture passage, we see St. Paul talking about how Christ’s death on the Cross overcame death, and that is why we have achieved eternal life. This applies to Mary because it also eludes to Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This woman that God is referring to is Mary and through her acceptance to bear the Son of Man into this world she has crushed the serpent's head and defeated death, and thus Pope Pius XII declares that she overcame death and was assumed into heaven.
There are other scripture passages that show that Mary was assumed into heaven, but these two are at the core of this dogmatic teaching. So today let us celebrate the life of Mary because without her love, without her total submission to God we would all die an earthly life without eternal life because without her Jesus would not be able to defeat death on the cross. Today we should also remember to try and imitate Mary and accept the will of God, even when it seems that it is too difficult.
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