Heaven is Our Goal

08-15-2021Weekly ReflectionFr. Anthony Okolo, C.S.Sp

Today we celebrate the solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. It means that Mary was taken body and soul into heaven. It was not by her own power that she was assumed into heaven, but by the special grace of God that her body should not experience corruption of decay as she was preserved from the beginning to give birth to one who is Holy. Her Assumption was a privilege she enjoyed as the Mother of God and totally sinless she was rewarded by God for that act. The feast celebrates the special place that Mary has in the life of the Church. By her assumption we can understand that Mary, because of the dignity of her motherhood and her own personal submission to God’s will at every stage of her life, takes precedence over everyone in sharing of God’s glory which is the destiny of all of us who die united with Christ her Son.

Pope Pius XII based his declaration of the Assumption on both tradition and theology. The uninterrupted tradition in the Eastern Churches starting from the first century, the apocryphal first book, Transitus Mariae, and the writings of the early Fathers of the Church, such as St Gregory and St. John Damascene, supported and prompted the popular belief in the Assumption of Mary. There are no relics, as with other Saints. Besides, credible apparition of Mary, though not recorded in the New Testaments, have been recorded from the third century till today.

In this decree on the dogma of Assumption, Pope Pius XII gives some theological reasons to support this traditional belief. “The degeneration or decay of the body after death is a result of original sin. However, since through a special intervention of God, Mary was born without original sin, it is not proper that God would permit her body to degenerate in the tomb. Since Mary was given the fullness of grace, heaven is the proper place for this sinless Mother of Jesus. In the Old Testament, we read that the prophet Elijah was taken into heaven in a fiery chariot. Thus, it appears natural and possible that the Mother of Jesus would also be taken into heaven.” On November 1, 1950 Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary to be a dogma of faith. In that declaration the Pope said, “We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma that Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory. The Pope proclaimed this dogma only after a broad consultation of bishops, theologians and laity. What the Pope proclaimed was already a common belief in the Catholic Church. For hundreds of years, Catholics observed the feast of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15, celebrating Mary’s being taken bodily to Heaven after her death.

Mary’s Assumption is the proof of how profitable it is to make sacrifices. Not the least of these sacrifices is the surrender of our bodily pleasures that are contrary to the will of God. The eternal reward is worth the temporal price we have to pay in self-control. By giving up what we like is sinful and enduring what is painful to us, but pleasing to God, we shall enjoy Heaven with Jesus and Mary in body and soul in the world to come. Mary’s Assumption is a call to penance. Pope Pius XII 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 family life stabilized where divorce was common and made fruitful where birth control was practiced. Again, Mary’s Assumption is our greatest hope that at the end of our own earthly life here we will enter into the company of Our Lord Jesus, of Our Lady and all the angels and Saints in Heaven.