On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII defined as a truth
revealed by God that the Immaculate Mother of God, Mary
ever Virgin, when the course of her life on earth was
finished, was taken up body and soul into heaven. Such is
the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.
“It was surely fitting, it was becoming, that she should
be taken up into heaven and not lie in the grave till Christ’s
second coming, who had passed a life of sanctity and of
miracles such as hers….Who can conceive that God should
so repay the debt, which He considered to owe to His
Mother for the elements of His human Body, as to allow the
flesh and blood from which it was taken to molder in the
grave? Or, who can conceive that that virginal frame which
never sinned, was to undergo the death of a sinner? … She
died, then, because even Our Lord and Savior died. But
though she died as well as others, she died not as others die;
for, through the merits of her Son, by whom she was what
she was, by the grace of Christ which in her had anticipated
sin, which had filled her with light, which had purified her
flesh from a defilement, she had been saved from disease
and malady, and all that weakens and decays the bodily
frame.” (Cardinal Newman)
Jesus and Mary both passed through the gate of death
into heaven. In her own way, Mary was crucified with
Jesus. She patiently stayed on earth, after His Ascension, so
long as God willed.
From her place in heaven she still abides invisibly with
us; ever our refuge, our comfort, our hope. Through the
Communion of Saints, of which she is the Queen, we share
in the joy and glory of her Assumption, to which the Introit
of the Mass of August 15th gives us the key.
Lives of the Saints, pgs. 315-317