Assumption of Mary
The Assumption of Mary is a Marian dogma of the Roman Catholic Church that, after his earthly life, Jesus’ mother was “assumed into heaven.” The term “assumption” comes from the Latin verb assumere, which means “take”, “remove”. The Catholic festival celebrating the Assumption of Mary, held August 15.
History of the assumption.
The Assumption of Mary Catholic Church is a dogma, that is to say a way to move towards God, the result of secular meditation of God’s people on his faith: we believe that because the dogma that it goes in the direction of the Faith.
Before becoming a dogma, the Assumption of Mary was therefore a belief based on tradition and not on scriptural foundations recognized the early days of the Church.
The Catholic Church considered that this tradition was consistent with the deposit of the faith and “well-considered by a century of Marian theology ubiquitous” since the proclamation of the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which is however no trace in the Bible.
A party before a dogma.
* In the sixth century the Byzantine emperor Maurice established in his empire, the Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary each year as of August 15, he seems to commemorate the inauguration of a church dedicated to the Virgin into heaven, the Tomb of Mary.
* The party is introduced in the West under the influence of Pope Theodore in the seventh century and was renamed Assumption from the following century. She is quoted under that name in 813 by the Council of Mainz among the holy days of obligation.
* In 1637, King Louis XIII desiring an heir of France dedicated to the Virgin Mary and asked his subjects to make every procession on August 15 in each parish to have a son. As Louis XIV was born the following year, the festival celebrated by the Vow of Louis XIII is particularly important in France.
* In 1854 the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception entails numerous petitions to Rome that is formally defined the dogma of the Assumption. “From 1854 to 1945, eight million followers will write in this direction. Added to the petitions of 1 332 bishops, 83,000 priests, nuns and religious. Faced with these repeated requests, Pius XII asked the bishops to rule the world. 90% of the bishops were in favor. 10% of bishops questioned the wisdom of such a declaration. ”
* In 1950, Pius XII institutionalizes the Marian feast that has existed for fourteen centuries, proclaiming a belief in the Assumption dogma of the Catholic Church: who have committed no sin, Mary is directly mounted to Paradise, with his soul and also with his body as untouched by original sin (the Immaculate Conception), there is no requirement to wait for his carnal bodily resurrection at the end of time (Munificientissimus Constitution, November 1, 1950).
Teaching of the Catholic Church.
On 1 November 1950, the Assumption of Mary is established as dogma by the apostolic constitution Deus Munificentissimus of Pope Pius XII:
“By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define as a divinely revealed dogma that the Immaculate Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, after having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory ”
- Dogmatic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus, § 44.
Subsequently, the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council of 1964 stated:
“Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, at the end of his earthly life, was raised to the glory of heaven in his soul and his body and was exalted by the Lord as Queen over to resemble more perfectly to his Son, Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death. ”
- Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, § 59.
Since the declaration of papal infallibility by Vatican I in 1870, this statement of Pius XII is the only use of papal infallibility ex cathedra.
