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Month: August 2022
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Assumption of the Blessed Mother
By Deacon Jim Bodine
The term for this week is: Assumption of the Blessed Mother
People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed – Dr Samuel Johnson
We just celebrated the Feast of the Assumption. The doctrine of the Assumption of Mary began with a historical event to which Scripture alludes and that been believed in the Church for 2,000 years. It was passed down in the oral tradition of the Church and developed over the centuries, but it was always believed by the Catholic faithful.
The Catechism teaches about the Assumption: 966 “Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.”508 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:
In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.509
. . . she is our Mother in the order of grace
967 By her complete adherence to the Father’s will, to his Son’s redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity. Thus she is a “preeminent and . . . wholly unique member of the Church”; indeed, she is the “exemplary realization” (typus)510 of the Church.
People often ask is there a scriptural basis for the Assumption. The answer is no. There is no known extant direct scriptural citation for the Assumption of the Blessed Mother. However, there is precedent and affirmation in scripture. Here are a few:
- Genesis 2:24: Then Enoch walked with God, and he was no longer here, for God took him.
- Hebrews 11:5: By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and “he was found no more because God had taken him.” Before he was taken up, he was attested to have pleased God.
- 2 Kings 2:11: As they walked on conversing, a flaming chariot and flaming horses came between them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.
- Matthew 27:52: tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:17: Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together 4 with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord.
The following is extracted from The Assumption of Mary in History | Catholic Answers | Catholic Answers:
One question we often get about the Assumption is, “Which of the Church Fathers for the first five centuries taught and believed in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary?”
Let’s take a look at some the evidence available, including the testimony of the Fathers.
There is solid historical evidence that the early Church believed in the Blessed Mother’s Assumption. For example, though there are two tombs associated with Mary in Jerusalem and Ephesus, respectively (two places that she lived), there is no testimony regarding her postmortem body and related relics. This is striking, because Jesus had no greater disciple than his Mother and yet, unlike other saints of the early Church, including St. Peter, there is zero historical evidence regarding relics of Mary.
This absence of relics in particular and the Blessed Mother’s body in general illustrates the early Church believed Mary was indeed assumed into heaven, body and soul.
In St. Epiphanius’ classic Panarion (“bread box”) or Refutation of All Heresies, written about AD 350, this early Church Father affirms belief in the Assumption:
Like the bodies of the saints, however, she has been held in honor for her character and understanding. And if I should say anything more in her praise, she is like Elijah, who was virgin from his mother’s womb, always remained so, and was taken up, but has not seen death (Panarion 79).
“St. Epiphanius clearly indicates his personal agreement with the idea that Mary was assumed into heaven without ever having died,” notes Tim Staples, Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers. “He will elsewhere clarify the fact that he is not certain, and no one is, at least not definitively so, about whether or not she died. But he never says the same about the Assumption itself. That did not seem to be in doubt. By comparing her to Elijah he indicates that she was taken up bodily just as the Church continues to teach 1,600 years later”.
However, why didn’t the earliest Church Father address the Assumption? Tim notes this teaching wasn’t an issue for them.
Because the doctrine wasn’t being attacked, it didn’t need to be defended.
A refresher on the Eucharist
Question: I understand that in the Eucharist the substance of the bread is transubstantiated into the substance of the Body of Christ. The accidents of the bread, though, remain. My question: when we consider the substance of the body of Christ in the Eucharist, does this substance also include the accidents of His body? Or is it the substance of His body without the accidents of His body?
I ask because of what the Catechism of the Council of Trent states under the section of “The Meaning of the Real Presence”: “Here the pastor should explain that in this sacrament are contained not only the true body of Christ and all the constituents of a true body, but also Christ whole and entire.”
Answer: Christ wishes to be intimately present to everyone in his true body and blood while on earth as the food of pilgrims. He could not do this if he were only present in the manner his body is present in heaven. The Blessed Sacrament is truly that body, but present in a substantial sacramental way. His body does not move through space to leave heaven and become present in one altar on earth, then in another. The change of transubstantiation is not just a change in form nor a change in place. It is a true change in substance. The dimensions and quantity of Christ’s risen body remain at the right hand of the Father, but become completely present on all the altars of the world completely and simultaneously, otherwise we would not all participate equally in the fullness of his obedience and love. This is what substantial presence means. It is the whole Christ: body, blood, soul and divinity.
The sacrament is a sign of his body and blood in the sense that they become present in the manner of a sacrament. All that is needed for the value of the sign is for the appearances to sense to remain for us. Not only is the form of the being changed, but the very vehicle of natural change does not endure.
In this, the change of transubstantiation is unlike any other natural change. In all other natural changes, there is a medium of change which must endure which is called matter. The properties express the change from one thing to another in the underlying medium of the change. In sculpting the block of marble, the marble is the medium which changes from a block to a stature. In air changing from cold to hot, the underlying medium of the change is the matter which the change in properties merely express when the being becomes a new being. In a living body changing to a dead body, the matter of the living body is the subject which survives as the matter of the dead body. Matter is the vehicle of change; form and properties are the things which change.
In the Eucharist, the whole substance is instantaneously converted into the body of Christ. Yet the appearances or properties remain miraculously. The form and the matter change completely. One could say that in a certain way the appearances or properties are the subject or the medium which supports the change and this is a miracle. These appearances are not an illusion. They are truly what the senses perceive and they truly express the thing which is there. Yet they do so by miraculous conservation because they do not inhere in the being of the body of Christ as other properties do. They perform what is characteristic of properties. The appearances of the precious blood would make someone drunk if he drank too much. The appearances of bread would nourish, if enough were eaten. Yet what happens to them is not true of the body. If they are divided, the body of Christ in heaven is not divided. If they are moved, the body of Christ is not moved. They move up to express him. Each particle of the properties express the whole Christ.
Since the whole Christ present in heaven becomes present without any local movement, this is truly the bread of angels which they adore now. The altar becomes heaven with the adoration of the Mystic Lamb in the Apocalypse present to us. The altar becomes the place where all the former works by which God prepared for the Cross of Christ become present in him. Yet heaven does not move, the bread and wine are changed wholly into the Lamb who exists there now. This is also the food of pilgrims. Christ instituted such a change that we might be transformed morally into him while on earth to support us spiritually on our journey to heaven.
The substance, therefore, cannot not include the accidents which remain the sign. As Hopkins says in his English translation of Adoro te devote: “Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived. How says holy hearing that shall be believed.” Also the dimensions of the Body and Blood of Christ is heaven are present but by concomitance, which means as an expression of the substance. But again, they do not move when the properties of bread are moved here on earth. Yet they are worshiped when the properties of bread are worshiped and the Mass is offered. The substance of the body includes the matter and form and by concomitance the blood. But the accidents are the medium by which we experience them.
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