Details of the final days of Mary on earth are lacking. The earliest tradition is that Mary lived in Jerusalem and that all the Apostles, except St. Thomas, were present at her death. However when the doubting Thomas reached the Holy City, his fellow apostles took him to her tomb only to find it empty. A later tradition has it that the Blessed Virgin Mary spent her last days in Ephesus with St. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Traditions apart, the earliest record on Mary’s departure from this planet can be traced back to the third century “Book of Repose”. In the fourth century, there appeared Six Books on the Dormition of Mary. St. Gregory of Tours had preached a sermon on the assumption of Mary in the fifth century. He said: “It is inconceivable that Mary’s sinless body, likened to the Ark of the Covenant which was made of incorruptible wood, should decay in the grave.” In the succeeding centuries, both the Eastern and the Western Churches began to accept this tenet till by the fourteenth century there was a kind of universal consensus on the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven.
In the meanwhile, Theological discussions and debates continued for long till 1950. On May 1, 1946, Pope Pius XII asked all the Bishops of the world if the belief in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin should be defined as a dogma and if so whether they, along with the clergy and the laity, desired it without delay. There was near unanimity in their affirmative response to the Supreme Pontiff. Hence on November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary into heaven as a dogma of faith saying: “We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” The Holy Father steered clear of the theological debate regarding the death or otherwise of Mary with the words: “having completed the course of her earthly life.” Even though Mary was immune from original and actual sins and consequently from death too, most Scholars believe Mary actually died in order to be in conformity with her Son, Jesus.
The Sacred Scriptures do not make any direct reference to the doctrine of Mary’s Assumption. Nonetheless, theological conclusions lead us to this truth. She was pure and sinless and therefore she should be exempt from decay, which is the wages of sin. Was not the flesh of Jesus the flesh of Mary and the blood of Jesus the blood of Mary? Now Jesus, who was always a loving and obedient son and from whom he received his own flesh and blood, would never allow the body of his beloved mother to be subjected to the corruption of the tomb. How could Jesus challenge us to follow the fourth commandment, if he himself did not observe it? Jesus and Mary were so closely united here on earth that it is befitting that they should both be in heaven with body and soul together without passing through the humiliation of corruption. Is it a pure coincidence that Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament (Gen.3:15) and Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, (Rev.12:1) speak of the glories of Mary? When thousands of people the world over claim to possess relics of all possible saints even from apostolic times, how do we explain that till today neither a person nor a place has staked claim to own at least a tiny portion of the mortal remains of the Blessed Virgin Mary?
Reflection. The doctrine of the Assumption is a source of great hope for us – that one day we shall also rise with our bodies and be where our heavenly mother is. God has two images of every human being: one, of what he is and the other, of what he was meant to be. The real is far removed from the ideal. In other words, man has never been what he was meant to be. But in Mary, there was adequacy between the ideal and the real – she really was what she was meant to be. No wonder, she is often called “the tainted nature’s solitary boast.”
1) “The Lord said to the serpent, “Because you have done this……I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Gen.3: 14-15)
2) “A great portent appeared in the heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. (Rev.12 1)
