Q. If the Assumption of Mary is such an important tenet of the faith, why is it not found in the New Testament?
A. For one, it had not happened yet!
While we do not have a definite date to the end of Mary’s earthly life, one tradition puts it around 57 AD at the age of 72, although it conceivably could be later. At this point, Paul had written many of his letters and the evangelists were beginning to put down the testimony of the apostles into writing.
The Assumption is the dogma which recognizes the Blessed Virgin Mary's singular participation in her Son's Resurrection by which she was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when the course of her earthly life was finished.
Interestingly enough, the last Gospel to be written—John—includes the most direct references to Mary’s ongoing importance in the Church: i.e. the Wedding Feast at Cana’s “Do whatever He tells you,” and at the Cross, “Son, behold your Mother.” Furthermore, it is precisely the last book of the New Testament—Revelation–which describes the woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Could it not be that something new has happened in the history of the Church which brings these references to the foreground, namely, the Assumption of Mary into heaven?
What’s more, the Church does provide Scriptural basis for the Assumption in the liturgy she celebrates on that very day. The First Reading describes David bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, foreshadowing Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant (see commentaries on the Annunciation and Visitation for such typology) who is brought into the New Jerusalem (Heaven) by the New David (Jesus). The Responsorial Psalm echoes this “Assumption” of the Ark, with an additional theme of hope that God’s faithful would join the Ark in the “dwelling” of the Lord, who dwells in heaven, and as Jesus says, “prepares a dwelling for us.”
The Second Reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians then expresses the Christian hope that “Death is swallowed up in victory,” and “that which is mortal clothes itself with immortality”; which among other Scripture references are condensed into the credal statement: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and life of the world to come.”
These Scripture references point to the purpose of the Assumption in the life of the Church, that Mary be “a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people,” as the Preface of the Mass says. She who is “full of grace” already experiences now the “fullness of grace” for which we, the Pilgrim Church, long for and move toward on our pilgrimage to heaven.
This question was answered by Father Joseph Wahlmeier, assistant pastor of North American Martyrs Parish in Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
