feast day (solemnity): August 15
about:
- is the oldest feast day of Our Lady, but we don't know how it first came to be celebrated
- informally known as the Assumption
- also called in old liturgical books Pausatio, Nativitas (for heaven), Mors, Depositio, Dormitio S. Mariae
- other names for the feast: The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary; The Assumption of Mary Into Heaven; The Dormition of the Theotokos; The Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary
- is a very old feast of the Church, celebrated universally by the sixth century
- This feast has a double object:
(1) the happy departure of Mary from this life;
(2) the assumption of her body into heaven.
It is the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin.
- according to the beliefs of the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and parts of Anglicanism, was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her earthly life.
- attributes: Mary assumed or elevated into Heaven with surrounding cherubs or saints
- The feast was originally celebrated in the East, where it is known as the Feast of the Dormition, a word which means "the falling asleep." The earliest printed reference to the belief that Mary's body was assumed into Heaven dates from the fourth century, in a document entitled "The Falling Asleep of the Holy Mother of God". The document is written in the voice of the Apostle John, to whom Christ on the Cross had entrusted the care of His mother, and recounts the death, laying in the tomb, and assumption of the Blessed Virgin.
- Tradition variously places Mary's death at Jerusalem or at Ephesus, where John was living.
the fact about the Assumption:
source: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02006b.htm
Regarding the day, year, and manner of Our Lady's death, nothing certain is known. The earliest known literary reference to the Assumption is found in the Greek work De Obitu S. Dominae. Catholic faith, however, has always derived our knowledge of the mystery from Apostolic Tradition. Epiphanius (d. 403) acknowledged that he knew nothing definite about it (Haer., lxxix, 11). The dates assigned for it vary between three and fifteen years after Christ's Ascension. Two cities claim to be the place of her departure: Jerusalem and Ephesus. Common consent favours Jerusalem, where her tomb is shown; but some argue in favour of Ephesus. The first six centuries did not know of the tomb of Mary at Jerusalem.
The belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is founded on the apocryphal treatise De Obitu S. Dominae, bearing the name of St. John, which belongs however to the fourth or fifth century. It is also found in the book De Transitu Virginis, falsely ascribed to St. Melito of Sardis, and in a spurious letter attributed to St. Denis the Areopagite. If we consult genuine writings in the East, it is mentioned in the sermons of St. Andrew of Crete, St. John Damascene, St. Modestus of Jerusalem and others. In the West, St. Gregory of Tours (De gloria mart., I, iv) mentions it first. The sermons of St. Jerome and St. Augustine for this feast, however, are spurious. St. John of Damascus (P.G., I, 96) thus formulates the tradition of the Church of Jerusalem:
St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; where from the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven.Today, the belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is universal in the East and in the West; according to Benedict XIV (De Festis B.V.M., I, viii, 18) it is a probable opinion, which to deny were impious and blasphemous.
quote:
“In the bodily and spiritual glory which she possesses in heaven, the Mother of Jesus continues in this present world as the image and first flowering of the Church as she is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise, Mary shines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come (cf. 2 Peter 3:10), as a sign of certain hope and comfort for the pilgrim People of God” (Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 68).
links/ sources:
- "Assumption of Mary" (Wikipedia):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary
- "The Feast of the Assumption" (Catholic Encyclopedia):
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02006b.htm
- "The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (About Catholicism):
http://catholicism.about.com/od/holydaysandholidays/p/Assumption.htm
- "The Assumption of Mary: A Belief Since Apostolic Times" by Father Clifford Stevens (EWTN):
https://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/AOFMARY.HTM
- "Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary" (American Catholic):
http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/Saint.aspx?id=1108