A Woman Clothed With the Sun

A few words on today's feast in the Roman Catholic Church.

Today is the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We Catholics believe that Mary, nearing the end of her life on earth in the city of Ephesus, did not "die" in the conventional way.  Rather, we speak of her dormition, her "falling asleep", if you will - because we believe that at the moment of death, Mary was assumed - body and soul - into Heaven. 

Living  now as I do in the Bible Belt, I am surrounded  by many evangelical Christians who hold to the tenet of sola scriptura - Scripture alone - and base their beliefs on a literal meaning of the Bible and its inerrancy.  Thus, they reject Marian devotion and certainly would scoff that Mary's Assumption is not true because it is not in the Bible.

Well, what they also reject is Tradition, as if the Christians, spiritually descendants of the ancient Hebrews, Hebrews who had a rich oral tradition accompanying their own sacred Scripture (remember, the Jews' ancestry starts with Abraham, who was long on the scene before Moses was given the law from God), as if these Christians would also not have an oral tradition.  To many of these modern day evangelical Christians, despite the fact that every group of self-identified people since mankind first began had oral tradition, they don't want to allow the same for themselves.  "If it ain't in the Good Book, it ain't so."

Before something can be codified, that is to say, written down, it must spring from somewhere.  And it does - oral tradition.  But let's look at the Good Book and see if there is something regarding the character of Mary.

In today's 1st reading, we hear from the Book of Revelation.  Revelation was written by St. John the Apostle during a periodof exile on the island of Patmos.  The Gospel finds an unusual break - it starts with the last verse of chapter 11 and continues in Chapter 12.  It reads:

God's temple in heaven was opened,
and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple.

A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun,
with the moon under her feet,
and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in the sky;
it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns,
and on its heads were seven diadems.
Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky
and hurled them down to the earth.

Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth,
to devour her child when she gave birth.
She gave birth to a son, a male child,
destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod.
Her child was caught up to God and his throne.
The woman herself fled into the desert
where she had a place prepared by God.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
"Now have salvation and power come,
and the Kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Anointed One."

The Ark of the Covenant was the vessel that God commanded Moses and Aaron to build to contain the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments.  As such, it was meant to be in corruptible, to the point where even touching it would cause a person to die - hence why it was always carried on poles and covered with a veil, and never allowed to touch the ground but be placed in a tabernacle.  The history of the Ark can be read in Exodus, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, and 1 Kings - I won't go into it here, except to add that in 586 BC, the Babylonians destroyed Solomon's Temple, where the Ark was kept.  No one records what happened to the Ark.

But look now - for St. John, Heaven is opened for his sight and the Ark is revealed.  And what does Scripture says that he sees?  A woman clothed with the sun. 

The Ark of the Old Testament carried God's covenant - His Commandments - with the Hebrews.  But that law is no more, surpassed by a new law giver, that is, Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is the New Covenant, fulfilling the prophecies and taking the form of man to bring salvation to the world.

And how was this done?  By being born to a virgin, she who is now the vessel, the Ark of the Covenant.  If God commanded that such care be taken with a box holding stone tablets such that it be touched by no earthly corruption, why would less be given to the woman who bore His Son?  It would be illogical for God to allow that - and indeed, as Revelation shows, He did not leave her to be devoured by the dragon but made for her a sanctuary in the desert where she would be safe.

Mary is the incorruptible Ark.  Thus, just as the Ark would not be allowed to touch the ground and be subject to the rot and decay of the grave, neither does the Blessed Virgin.  Hence, her Assumption.

Read that Good Book - it's in there.  And maybe ask yourself, how is it the early Christians preserved the burial spot of Sts. Peter and Paul, such that their bones now rest under St. Peter's Basilica, but not the grave of Christ's mother.  We know she was not abandoned, when Jesus - dying on the Cross- took care to entrust her safety to St. John. 

To Catholics, the answer is simple:  there is no grave.  Because it wasn't needed.