Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven Body and Soul, 2022

 

At the First Vatican Council which started in 1869 defined papal infallibility.  It has since been invoked explicitly in 2 instances.  One of the instances was in 1950 when Pope Pius the 12^th wrote the encyclical Munificentimus deus which infallibly declared that the Blessed Mother was assumed body and soul into heaven.

 

Why just in 1950, almost 1900 years after the event took place?  I would like to read just an excerpt from his encyclical

 

"The holy Fathers and the great Doctors, in the homilies and sermons they gave the people on this feast day, did not draw their teaching from the feast itself as from a primary source, but rather they spoke of this doctrine as something already known and accepted by Christ's faithful. They presented it more clearly. They offered more profound explanations of its meaning and nature, bringing out into sharper light the fact that this feast shows, not only that the dead body of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt, but that she gained a triumph out of death, her heavenly glorification after the example of her only begotten Son, Jesus Christ-truths that the liturgical books had frequently touched upon concisely and briefly.

Thus St. John Damascene, an outstanding herald of this traditional truth, spoke out with powerful eloquence when he compared the bodily Assumption of the loving Mother of God with her other prerogatives and privileges. "It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father. It was fitting that God's Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God."(17)

These words of St. John Damascene agree perfectly with what others have taught on this same subject.

 

We give thanks that we have a person who was only a human being already in Heaven, body and soul to intercede for us.  Mary please pray for us and for your whole Church!