A Questionable Assumption?

On 15 August

Turn to the Kalendar of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and you will search in vain for a feast on 15 August. This seems quite odd. Given that the same Kalendar does mark the Nativity (8 September), Annunciation (25 March), Visitation (2 July) and post-partum Purification (2 February) of the Blessed Virgin Mary, why should it not celebrate the day when it is agreed by universal consensus of the Church that Our Lady passed from this life to the next?

The reason for this strange omission is doctrinal: so, we have to take care all the more to remember that what we celebrate today is not a doctrine, but an event in the life of a saint, and of the Church. But, things being as they are, and given the still lingering suspicion in the Church of England of all things Marian, some discussion of doctrine is inevitable.

Fr Darwell Stone, Principal of Pusey House in Oxford from 1909 to 1934, wrote in 1926 an eminently readable book overdue for serious republication called the "Faith of an English Catholic" (which was his preferred term for what most would call an Anglo-Catholic). On the subject of today's feast, he wrote:

"A few Anglo-Catholics believe that, after the death of the Blessed Virgin, her body was assumed into heaven so that she, both in body and in soul, is now in glory at the throne of God. Such an opinion, though widely held both in the East and in the West, has never been made to be of faith in any part of the Church; and the vast majority of Anglo-Catholics probably either reject it or regard it as one of those matters for the decision of which there is no sufficient evidence."

That the doctrine of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was "never made to be of faith in any part of the Church" was true when Fr Stone wrote; it is no longer, since in 1950, Pope Pius proclaimed it a dogma binding on all Roman Catholics. It is not recorded in Holy Scripture. But before relegating it to a matter of mere pious opinion, we should consider what the doctrine is, its history, and why it has been taught.

Pope Pius left the question open of whether Mary actually died, and then immediately rose again, or whether she did not experience death and passed straight into heaven. The former position - that Mary died as we do, and afterwards, her body was taken into heaven - has traditionally been that held by the Eastern Church: hence, since around the 5th century, the Orthodox keep what they call the Feast of the Falling Asleep, or "Dormition" of the Blessed Virgin Mary on this day. Around a century later, the Western Church started to observe the same feast. Some suggested that Mary did not even die, since the sword which Zechariah promised would "pierce her heart" had already done so when she saw her Son die on the Cross. One death was enough. Hence instead of dying, she was assumed directly into heaven, and the feast was called the "Assumption."

One way or the other, by the time of the Reformation, the Church both East and West had been celebrating Our Lady's passage from earth to heaven on this day for at least one thousand years. But when confronted with the question of how - with or without first dying? - because they could find no answer in Scripture, to which they were so firmly committed, they simply left it out.

Were they right to do so? If I believed they were, I would not be celebrating this feast today. But I think that one can follow their principles of appealing to Scripture and still make a good case for doing so.

Modern scepticism toward the Assumption or Dormition of Our Lady is more likely to be based in something other than the Reformers' appeal to Scripture: namely, a mixture of prejudice against Roman Catholicism with the rationalist presumption that miracles do not happen. We need to put both of these aside if we are to see clearly.

First, the fact that Rome does something does not automatically make it un-English or wrong, and we should pay all the more attention when it enjoys substantial support from the churches of the East. If anything, Pope Pius' caution in not coming down on either side on the divisive issue of whether or not Mary died before she was assumed, body and soul, into heaven, should make us more attentive to what the majority of the Church has always held in common and still does.

Second, concerning miracles, for God all things are possible, and if we believe in the miracles recorded in Scripture, we should at least be open to the possibility of those attested by tradition. Specifically, the miracle of Assumption per se enjoys Scriptural support. Genesis 5.24 speaks of God "taking" Enoch; the extra-biblical Enochic literature interprets this as Enoch being assumed bodily into heaven without dying; and the Apostles themselves refer in the New Testament to these Enochic books without distinguishing them from what we consider to be the canon of Old Testament Scripture. The Prophet Elijah was taken up to God in a whirlwind in 2 Kings 2:11, and returns to stand next to Jesus at His Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, along with Moses. Moses' own example is more complicated: he dies in Deuteronomy 34:5-6, but a literal reading of the text says that the Lord Himself "buried" Moses, and that nobody knows where. It is surely relevant that a book called "the Assumption of Moses" was circulating around the time the Gospels were written. So, there were at least three biblically-inspired precedents behind the Assumption of Mary. If the Assumptions of Enoch, Moses and Elijah could have happened, so could Our Lady's.

The question is, did it? There may be no hard scriptural evidence, but there is scriptural support. Remember that Our Lord, dying on the Cross, entrusted his mother to the care of St John the Evangelist. Traditional sources say that St John did indeed look after her until her passing. So we might heed his vision, in Revelation, of the woman "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars;" she is "with child," and confronts the dragon who is ready to devour her Son, sweeping down a third of the stars with his tail. Here is surely an image of Mary in heaven, wielding great spiritual power, standing against Satan and the fallen angels whom those stars represent. For she is, as Darwell Stone avers, “not only the greatest of the saints, but also she has the unique position and privilege that she is the only being in the universe to whom the title Mother of God can be applied.” The Enochic literature portrays the saints as replacements for those fallen angels, still human and still creatures, but ruling over the Divine Council under God. If Moses and Elijah, who brought forth the Law and prophecy of the Old Testament, were fit to be accelerated into those highest ranks, then it is surely all the more fitting that Mary, who brought the very Word of God Incarnate into the world, should be afforded at least the same privilege.

One final piece of evidence should also give us pause: relics. Relics of the saints abound: fragments of St John the Baptist's skull and bones of the Apostles were kept and guarded carefully. Yet no such relics of the Blessed Virgin have ever even been claimed to exist. Whether Our Lady fell asleep, died, or was alive at the time is a matter of insolvable speculation, but the evidence suggests that from the very earliest days, it was believed that her body was assumed into heaven along with her soul, where she is enthroned above all the saints and angels.

Whatever one thinks of this matter, Darwell Stone concludes, “it is natural and right to commemorate the death of the Mother of our Lord, as of other saints; and ... in accordance with the ancient custom which became universal, the fifteenth of August is an appropriate day.” I would go further. The Assumption is not foreign superstition but part of our English spiritual heritage recovered. Our mediaeval ancestors built cathedrals in Our Lady’s honour, sang her praises, sought her intercession in times of peril. England was dedicated as "Mary's Dowry,” pilgrims flocked to Walsingham, knowing her as living Queen of Heaven, Mother of the Church, and protector against the powers of darkness. We may not be in communion with Rome at present, but Mary is as much a part of England's tradition as theirs.

All this matters because it connects us to that richer spiritual world our ancestors knew but we have forgotten. They understood that heaven and earth interpenetrate, that the saints are not distant memories but living intercessors, and that spiritual realities shape physical ones. The Assumption shows us that bodies, and more broadly, matter matter to God. The Saviour came to us through a woman’s body too precious to undergo physical corruption.

The Church of England does not demand consent in this matter, but I believe I speak in conformity with the mind of the wider Catholic Church, West and East, when I say that Our Blessed Lady is so loved by her Son that He took her into His Presence without delay; that she ranks above all saints and angels and fends off the Enemy's attacks; that her prayers are strong, a mother's prayers for her adopted children; and that she is worthy of our honour today.

As we receive the fruit of her womb at the altar this Assumption, let us ask Our Lady to pray for us, that we come to love Him as she does.

Ave!