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 all
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, Pages 315-317