Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary  

Posted by siouxbhoney



On the day of 15 August
The solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when the course of her earthly life was complete, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory. Pope Pius XII solemnly defined this belief received through the tradition of the Church. **Saint/Feast of the day segment copied from the USCCB page.






I really need to take a class on Revelation. I've learned that this reading is supposed to pertain to Mary, but I'm not sure if she's the woman in the desert. Also, I may be very, very wrong, because the footnotes say little to back this up:


The woman adorned with the sun, the moon, and the stars (images taken from Genesis 37:9-10) symbolizes God's people in the Old and the New Testament. The Israel of old gave birth to the Messiah (Rev 12:5) and then became the new Israel, the church, which suffers persecution by the dragon (Rev 12:6, 13-17); cf Isaiah 50:1; 66:7; Jeremiah 50:12. This corresponds to a widespread myth throughout the ancient world that a goddess pregnant with a savior was pursued by a horrible monster; by miraculous intervention, she bore a son who then killed the monster.


Still confused. I'm going to church today, 'cause for us Catholics, it's a day of obligation. Maybe the priest will explain it in his homily.






Today is hard. The resurrection of humans has always been the most difficult christian concept for me to grasp, and Paul is facing it head-on in this letter. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Isn't this one of the most common childhood questions about God and Jesus? If God is good, why do people have to die? I've gotta stop using the footnotes as a crutch sometime, but not today. This is what they have to say:


The last enemy . . . is death: a parenthesis that specifies the final fulfillment of the two Old Testament texts just referred to, Psalm 110:1 and Psalm 8:7. Death is not just one cosmic power among many, but the ultimate effect of sin in the universe (cf 1 Cor 15:56; Romans 5:12). Christ defeats death where it prevails, in our bodies. The destruction of the last enemy is concretely the "coming to life" (1 Cor 15:22) of "those who belong to Christ" (1 Cor 15:23).




Gospel: Luke 1:39-56

This is my favorite Mary story. I imagine a lot of affection between these two cousins. Mary is coming to help Elizabeth while she is pregnant, too old to have a baby, and probably feeling pretty sick. Mary, on the other hand, is displaying a lot of courage to travel in her own pregnant state, being a teenage unwed mother and all. They are both pregnant with children that are definitely going to change the world, and have both had major religious discoveries about it. They must have each felt so alone in the world, with the knowledge that they were carrying along with their children. It's nice that they had each other to talk to. No wonder that Mary stayed for three months.





This entry was posted on 8/15/08 at 7:30 AM . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

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