The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
In Assumptione Beatæ Mariæ Virginis
The crowning Marian feast of the year: the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the end of her earthly life, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven.
On the fifteenth of August the Church keeps the greatest of all the feasts of Our Lady — the Assumption, when the Mother of God, her earthly course completed, was raised body and soul to the glory of heaven. It is among the oldest of the Marian feasts, kept in the East as the Dormition (the “falling asleep”) of the Virgin from at least the sixth century, and in Rome scarcely later. In the traditional Roman Rite it is a feast of the First Class and a Holy Day of Obligation.
A Truth Held from Antiquity
That Our Lady was assumed into heaven was believed and celebrated by the faithful long before it was solemnly defined. On 1 November 1950, Pope Pius XII, in the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus, proclaimed as a dogma of the faith “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” The definition gave dogmatic certainty to what Christian piety had long held and what the liturgy of this very day had sung for centuries.
Its Meaning for Us
The Assumption is the feast of Christian hope. In raising his Mother, body and soul, into glory, God shows us the destiny he intends for all his children: not the perishing of the body, but its resurrection and glorification. Where Mary has gone, the Church follows. The feast turns our eyes from the passing things of earth toward the lasting things of heaven — which is why the Collect asks that we may be “ever intent upon heavenly things.”
The Collect
Almighty everlasting God, who hast taken up body and soul into heavenly glory the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of Thy Son: grant, we beseech Thee; that, ever intent upon heavenly things, we may be worthy to be partakers of her glory. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ…
Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, qui immaculátam Vírginem Maríam, Fílii tui Genitrícem, córpore et ánima ad cæléstem glóriam assumpsísti: concéde, quǽsumus; ut, ad supérna semper inténti, ipsíus glóriæ mereámur esse consórtes.
Common Questions
When is the Assumption celebrated?
The Assumption is kept on 15 August every year. In the traditional Roman calendar it is a feast of the First Class.
Is the Assumption a Holy Day of Obligation?
Yes. In the United States the Assumption (15 August) is one of the six Holy Days of Obligation, on which the faithful are bound to assist at Mass.
What is the difference between the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception?
They are two distinct truths. The Immaculate Conception (8 December) concerns the beginning of Mary’s life — that she was preserved free from original sin from the first moment of her conception. The Assumption concerns its end — that she was taken body and soul into heaven.
See where this feast falls in the Church’s year on the liturgical calendar, or find a Traditional Latin Mass near you.