The Assumption: Why It’s Important to You

The Assumption of Mary is important for many reasons—for the glorification of God, the completion of His redemptive work, the theology of the Incarnation, to name a few. A post could be dedicated to each of these. But what does it mean for our personal faith journeys? Other than inspiring further devotion to the Mother of God, there’s an additional reason that the Assumption is important, a reason that I think is sometimes overlooked. Pope Pius XII speaks to this in the apostolic constitution in which he defined this teaching as an infallible dogma:

It is to be hoped that all the faithful will be stirred up to a stronger piety toward their heavenly Mother, and that the souls of all those who glory in the Christian name may be moved by the desire of sharing in the unity of Jesus Christ’s Mystical Body and of increasing their love for her who shows her motherly heart to all the members of this august body. And so we may hope that those who meditate upon the glorious example Mary offers us may be more and more convinced of the value of a human life entirely devoted to carrying out the heavenly Father’s will and to bringing good to others. Thus, while the illusory teachings of materialism and the corruption of morals that follows from these teachings threaten to extinguish the light of virtue and to ruin the lives of men by exciting discord among them, in this magnificent way all may see clearly to what a lofty goal our bodies and souls are destined. Finally it is our hope that belief in Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven will make our belief in our own resurrection stronger and render it more effective.

In other words, the Assumption offers us additional assurance that we too, who have been baptized into Christ’s death and shared in His Body through the Eucharist, also will experience a resurrection of our bodies. Christ wasn’t the exception for the human race in this sense. Rather, He points the way forward to a greater, more glorious future in which we are all invited to share. This is reinforced by the truth that already another one from the human race has already followed Him into Heaven—Mary.

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Stephen Beale is a freelance writer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Raised as an evangelical Protestant, he is a convert to Catholicism. He is a former news editor at GoLocalProv.com and was a correspondent for the New Hampshire Union Leader, where he covered the 2008 presidential primary. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN and the Today Show and his writing has been published in the Washington Times, Providence Journal, the National Catholic Register and on MSNBC.com and ABCNews.com. A native of Topsfield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Brown University in 2004 with a degree in classics and history. His areas of interest include Eastern Christianity, Marian and Eucharistic theology, medieval history, and the saints. He welcomes tips, suggestions, and any other feedback at bealenews at gmail dot com. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/StephenBeale1

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