What is the Assumption of the Virgin Mary that is celebrated on the 15th of August?

Question

Details and serious answers please!

Answer 1

From "Feast of the Assumption" article:

On this day, a Holy Day of Obligation, we recall Our Lady's being assumed into Heaven and crowned Queen. Though the Church has always believed in the Assumption of Mary, the dogma was only formally defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950 in his Bull Munificentissimus Deus. Note that Mary was assumed into Heaven -- taken up by the power of God, like Elias and Enoch -- while Christ ascended into Heaven under His own power.

This Feast is associated with herbs and fruits, and the Roman Ritual includes a blessing for such. In some parishes and chapels, congregants will bring fresh flowers to adorn the church in Mary's honor, and will bring the same along with fruit and herbs -- especially healing herbs -- to be blessed and take home.

The giving of these blessed herbs, fruit baskets, and flowers and is a lovely custom of the day, and our prayer is that we emulate Mary by using the blessed herbs to bring healing to the world.

In some coastal areas, the seas are also blessed on this day, especially in fishing communties. The passages from the 21st chapter of the Gospel of St. John in which Jesus went fishing with His Apostles are read, along with sections of Luke 5. The Magnificat is prayed and then the sea is sprinkled with Holy Water and the Sign of the Cross made over it. It is believed that to swim in the waters blessed on this day is curative.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

This feast has a double object: (1) the happy departure of Mary from this life; (2) the assumption of her body into heaven. It is the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin.

From Wikipedia:

The Roman Catholic Feast of the Assumption is celebrated on August 15, and the Eastern Orthodox celebrate the Dormition of the Theotokos (the falling asleep of the Mother of God) on the same date, preceded by a 14-day fast period. Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that Mary died a natural death before being resurrected and assumed into Heaven. Most Catholics also believe this, but others believe she was assumed into Heaven without first passing through death; this aspect of the Assumption is not authoritatively defined in Catholic theology. Eastern-rite Catholics also observe the Feast of the Dormition. Many theologians note by way of comparison that in the Roman Catholic Church, the Assumption is dogmatically defined, while in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Dormition is less dogmatically than liturgically and mystically defined. (Such differences spring from a larger pattern in the two traditions, wherein Roman Catholic teachings are often dogmatically and authoritatively defined--in part because of the more centralized structure of Roman Catholicism--while in Eastern Orthodoxy, many doctrines are less dogmatic and authoritative.)

Answer 2

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was her entry into Heaven both body & soul, rather than soul only.

Just as the Prophets Elijah & Elisha & our Lord Jesus Himself(after His Resurrection from the Dead)Entered into Heaven with Their Bodies, so too, did His Mother Mary enter Heaven without leaving her body to decay in the earth.

Answer 3

The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was assumed into heaven. I think assumption is a good name for it. It's an assumption. It says no where in the Bible that Mary was assumed into heaven. I grew up a Catholic and as I grew older and started to think through things this was the first one I had a problem with. I went to confession and said to the priest, "it's not that I don't believe it, it's just that I don't know. He refused to give me absolution. ....long story...well anyway I am a Christian now and very happy to be one.

Answer 4

It's a relatively late development in Roman Catholic teaching which states that the Virgin Mary was taken up to heaven in the flesh just as the Bible says Jesus was taken up in the flesh after his resurrection. In other words, she didn't die.

It's not Biblical, of course. Mary was a supporting character--not even #2 in the New Testament.

Answer 5

This feast has a double object: (1) the happy departure of Mary from this life; (2) the assumption of her body into heaven. It is the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin.

OOPS! This exact answer was posted as I was posting it!

Answer 6

SERIOUSLY!

An invention of the catholic Cult.

It is in The Bible that Joseph and Mary had both boys and girls well after Jesus was born. So much for her still being a Virgin.

The Cult need her to rise bodily (the Assumption) to heaven so they can make her a Co Redeemer -- EQUAL TO JESUS/GOD in Heaven.

THIS IS BLASPHEMY in every ones mind that is not of the Roman C Cult!

SERIOUSLY ! And that's not HATE - ITS FACT!

Answer 7

Mary died and went up to heaven on big puffy clouds surrounded by angels and everything is very blue (sky, robe) and white (clouds) with raiments of sunlight on the sides. This is the picture I remember. Roses are on the bottom of the page because roses are her flower.

Wow school was so long ago, too.

Answer 8

Mary the mother of Jesus taken up to heaven. This is a man made made made doctrine that does not exist in the Bible. However Mary is to be respected .

Answer 9

After the Reformation, Martin Luther became an recommend of the perpetual virginity of Mary (i think that he additionally recommended the stainless thought.) it is interior the Lutheran e book of brotherly love. His viewpoint has been overturned, yet you could actually locate it interior the footnotes of "The e book of brotherly love."

Answer 10

she is not a virgin, the assumption is a fallacy she died