by Fr. Jose “Joesum” Sumampong, Jr.
August 15, 2021
18TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIMES (B)
SUNDAY OF THE SOLEMNMITY OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY (B)
THE CATHOLIC CATECHISM: Blessed Virgin Mary’s Assumption into Heaven
Almost as soon as Pius IX defined the dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Rome was beseiged with petitions for defining also her bodily Assumption. It is calculated that from 1870 to 1940, over four hundred bishops, eighty thousand priests and religious, and more than eight million of the laity had formally signed requests asking for the definition.
As a consequence, on May 1, 1946, Pius XII sent the following questionnaire to all the bishops of the Catholic world: “Do you, Venerable Brethren, in view of the wisdom and prudence that is yours, judge that the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin can be proposed and defined as a dogma of faith; and do you, along with your clergy and faithful, desire it?”
Within a few months, the replies received in Rome were “almost unanimous” in favor of definition. The Pope drew the inevitable conclusion from the consent of those whom “the Holy Spirit has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God.”
On November 1, 1950, Pius XII answered these requests of the Catholic Hierarchy with a solemn definition that “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 as divinely revealed dogma: The Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, after her life on earth, was assumed, body and soul to the glory of heaven.”
The spontaneous reaction of the faithful was gratitude for the exalted honor paid to the Mother of God. The Pope’s own sentiments were expressed to the bishops gathered in Rome for the occasion when he told them the joy he felt over the proclamation and the assurance it gave him that Mary would obtain the graces of which mankind stood in such dire need. On the level of piety and devotion, therefore, Mary’s Assumption was only the climax in a series of definitions to honor the Blessed Virgin, beginning with the divine maternity at Ephesus and terminating in the past century with the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception. But dogmatically the Constitution of Munificentissimus Deus has a much deeper meaning.
Pope Pius defined Mary’s Assumption as a truth divinely revealed. Of the two sources of revelation, theologians commonly say the Assumption was implicit in Tradition, in spite of the practical absence of documentary evidence before A.D. 300. Yet the Pope finally declared that the doctrine was in revelation. How do we know? On the answer to this question rests a new insight into Christian Tradition that had been gaining momentum since the eighteenth century. Briefly stated, Tradition is coming to be identified more with the Church’s magisterium or teaching office and less exclusively as the source along with Scripture, of the truths of salvation. Behind this new emphasis is a development of dogma since the Council of Trent that reveals hidden depths in the Mystical Body of Christ. The Church is not only the guardian of a faith once and for all given to the apostles, but expositor of that faith in every age to the end of time.
In August of the same year that he defined the Assumption, the Pope laid down the principles that guided the marian definition. The Church’s teaching authority, he said in Humani Generis, is not confined to reflecting or consolidating the past. It is also, and especially, the vital present-day function of an organism animated by the Spirit of God. “Together with the sources of revelation (Scripture and Tradition) God has given to his Church a living magisterium to elucidate and explain what is contained in the deposit of faith only obscurely and, as it were, by implication.” The degree of obscurity, we may add, is unimportant. Given this faculty by her founder, whose Spirit of truth abides with her at all times, the Church can infallibly discern what belongs to revelation no matter how cryptic the contents may be.
Consequently, when Pius XII defined the Assumption, he did more than propose the doctrine for acceptance by the faithful or give them a new motive for devotion to the Blessed Mother. He indicated the Church’s right to authorize a legitimate development in doctrine and piety that scandalizes Protestants and may even surprise believing Catholics. The Assumption thus becomes part of a larger process, along with Catholic Action, the liturgical movement, and even such practical matters as the mitigated Eucharistic fast, in which the current problems of the Church and the present needs of souls are being met by the Holy Spirit. Without the premises inherent in Munificentissimus Deus, the Second Vatican Council could not have done its monumental work of updating the Church in modern times.
It was no coincidence that on the day following the Assumption definition, the Pope expressed the hope that this new honor to Mary would introduce “a spirit of penance to replace the prevalent love of pleasure, and a renewal of a family life stabilized where divorce was common and made fruitful where birth control was practiced.” If there is one feature that characterizes today’s world, it is the cult of the body. (Fr. John Gardon)
oOo
Here care some stories which lead us to better understand the implication of this Solemnity.
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Realities: 1. A doctor spoke to the young mother of a tiny baby, “I am very sorry, Mrs. Killer, but you must be brave. Prepare yourself for a severe shock With tears in her eyes and trembling lips the mother asked, “Then my baby is not going to get better? She is going to … ”
She was so heart-broken that she could not finish. The doctor
anticipated her question, “No, she is not going to die, but she will be both blind and deaf.”
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Realities: 2. A little boy always wanted to visit the place where heaven and earth meet. He could see it quite plainly from his mother’s cottage and he thought the place where heaven came down to earth must be very beautiful.
With his eyes fixed on the horizon, the “meeting place of heaven and earth”, he began, one day, to walk. He walked on and on until he became very tired. He found himself in a valley where the horizon lay hidden from view. A cottage was near, and a woman was standing in the door. He told her of his quest, and she pointed out a house not so very far away.
“There it is,” she said, “only hurry; it will soon be dark.” He hurried on and was soon climbing the hill that led to his own home. And there in the doorway was his mother waving him a greeting.
“My own home,” he thought to himself, “the place where heaven and earth meet.” (Drinkwater, HOME AND HEAVEN)
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Realities: 3. Across the operating table from the nun stood a surgeon. They had worked together for years. As they operated, the doctor would often look up at her quizzically and say, “Funny, Sister, but in all our operations we’ve never yet found a soul, have we?”
The nun always replied simply, “We’ll find yours before you die, doctor. You can’t get away. I’m praying for you.”
To which he had a stock answer, “You’d better save your prayers for someone that’s a possibility. I’m not.”
He left for a holiday, and after the lapse of a few days the word came back to his hospital that he had suddenly been taken violently ill and had died. The nun went to the chapel and made her great act of faith.
“I’m sure, dear Lord, that you saved his soul. At the end you gave him the faith.” And she added, “But could you let me know for certain?” God did. After a few hours the word came, He had been taken to a hospital run by nuns; he himself had sent for the priest. He had been baptized, had received the last sacraments, and died. (Daniel Lord, PERSEVERING PRAYER)