In the middle of this month we will celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The belief that Our Lady’s body was not permitted to suffer the corruption of death but instead was raised up to heaven was not formally defined until 1950, though it had been believed by the vast majority of Catholics for centuries before that.
But, it might be objected, there is nothing in the Scriptures about it, and therefore we should not be obliged to believe it. There are two things wrong with this claim: firstly, the presupposition that a truth of the faith is only a truth of the faith if it is explicitly stated in the Bible. It is, I suggest, open to discussion whether the doctrine of the Trinity is stated in plain, unambiguous terms – though I would claim that it is the only plausible interpretation of certain passages. We Catholics have no problem with the idea that the Holy Spirit guides the Church to a fuller understanding of the faith of the Apostles than what can be read uncontroversially out of Scripture. We are not a sola scriptura religion like Islam.
The second false assumption is that there is nothing about the Assumption in the Bible. Once we accept that there can be truths – even important ones – about the history and ongoing reality of salvation to which the Church might gradually be led to a fuller and fuller understanding, then we can turn the question around: instead of asking, “What do the scriptures, as I read them, demand that I believe?” we can ask, “Given that we do believe in the Assumption of Our Lady, how does that help me to come to a fuller understanding of some biblical passages?” What I am suggesting is that scripture and doctrine are mutually illuminating.
An obvious place to begin would be with the readings for the Mass of the Assumption, of which the first is the passage in chapter 12 of the Apocalypse about the woman clothed with the sun. It would be futile, I think, to attempt to use this passage to persuade someone that they must believe in the Assumption. Yes, the woman is depicted as being in heaven, and yes, she is the mother of a son who is destined to rule all the nations and who is taken up to the throne of God. Hard to believe that’s not Jesus! But the logic of apocalyptic visions is hardly straightforward; and in any case, the woman is depicted as being in heaven before she gives birth, not many years afterwards.
Many biblical scholars would want to insist that the woman in this vision is a symbol – whether of Israel or of the Church, or perhaps both. I would not disagree with that. This vision is given to the Church to reassure her that she will prevail against her persecutors, whether Ancient Romans or modern enemies of the faith; it is a vision about how in Christ, the hopes of Israel that her Messiah would finally overcome her oppressors has finally come true, and in an astonishing way – for he has defeated death itself.
But in the light of the doctrine of the Assumption we can see that this victory is so much more than a personal one for Jesus. He is, as St Paul puts it, “the first fruits of those who have died” (1 Cor 15:20). The personal fate of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not a separate issue from the hope of Israel fulfilled in the Church, but intimately connected to it, as she becomes a sign of hope for all of humanity. We are conscious that, as we continue to fight the fight of the faith here on earth, one of our fellow disciples, the Queen of the Apostles, already enjoys the full fruits of the victory that is ours to grasp.
Even the Old Testament is opened up to us in a new way. The psalm for this feast is Psalm 44, the “royal wedding psalm”, and it speaks of the splendour of the royal bride. But it speaks also of the rejoicing of her “maiden companions”, who share in her glory. The doctrine of the Assumption helps us to see that our veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not a cryptopagan yearning for a Mother Goddess, but a celebration of the extraordinary love of God who has destined us for nothing less than a share in the glory of heaven.
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