We believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary at the end of her life on earth, did not suffer bodily corruption but was assumed body and soul into heaven.I am fascinated by the "mechanics" of her assumption. Earlier images show her falling asleep, Christ comes and takes her soul and her body "melts" away into heaven to join her soul, this imagery continues to be the dominant one used in the East. In the west she is seen as the woman in the Apocalypse, clothed in the sun and taken up into heaven. Later images show her just rising into heaven.
The Second Vatican Council, said that what we say of the Virgin Mary we can say of the Church and what we say of the Church we can say of Mary. Therefore the Assumption gives us an insight into the destiny of the whole People of God, our destiny is Heaven, but like Mary we are taken there, by Christ, we don't get there under our own steam. Heaven for us as for Mary is the gift of God, not our right or even our natural homeland. Mary merits it by her Immaculate Conception, we by our Baptism and communion with Christ, but in our case and hers it is pure gift of God.
Because we believe in the "Resurrection of the Body", it is not just our souls that are taken up into Heaven but our bodies too, indeed Mary underlines the necessity of the "flesh" in salvation, through her flesh God comes into the world in flesh, to suffer in the flesh, to give us his flesh, to rise in the flesh and to ascend into Heaven in the flesh and to sit at the righthand of the Father in the flesh and to return to judge the living and the dead in the flesh.
3 comments:
Fr., I was wondering if you could answer something that has troubled me for a while, regarding the Assumption and the Ascension. In the 'old days' when the world was thought of a three tiered, ie. heaven above, hell below, the images of ascension and assumption, where bodies are physically lifted up to heaven, make sense, as they are geographically heading towards heaven. Our understanding of heaven emphasises the living in joy with God rather than it's physical lcation. In fact we would say heaven is not physically a place above earth. In light of this could I ask, where did the bodies go?
I have tries to indicate a response in the next post. I say indicate a response rather than answer you question.
Where exactly in Scripture does it talk about Mary a) ascending into heaven (contradicting John 3:13), b) being given immortality (contradicting 1 Tim 6:16), c) becoming a mediator (contradicting 1 Tim 2:5), and d) not sinning (contradicting Romans 5:12)?
As for the question about where bodies go:
Job 3:13-19 "For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master."
Ecc 3:19-20 "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again."
Ecc 6:6 "Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?"
Etc., etc., etc...
Bodies go into the ground. They cease to exist until the resurrection.
Post a Comment