Dormition and Assumption
Every feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a testimony to the truth of the Incarnation: that the Son of God became Son of Man in the Virgin’s womb, so that the sons (and daughters) of men might become the sons of God. Thus to honour Mary as the Mother of God, is to honour Christ himself – it’s testimony to the Incarnation, testimony that the human son of the Virgin is the Son of God.
Second, every feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary sets before us the example of her faith for us to follow: the faith demonstrated in her response to the angel’s message, that first proclamation of the gospel, “behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word”. As someone said, “before she conceived Christ in her womb, Mary conceived him in her heart, by faith”. She is an exemplar of Christian faith in the Word made flesh, and of the humble obedience of faith, by which that faith is known.
On August 15th, the church celebrates a further dimension of the gospel she believed: that the Word of God was made flesh precisely so that all flesh might share in the eternal life of God. This feast has two names – Dormition, which means “falling asleep”, and Assumption, which means “taking up”. From ancient times, Christians have believed that when Mary “fell asleep” in the Lord and departed this life in death, she was immediately “taken up” into glory, not only in soul but also in body. Like certain saints of the Old Testament, Enoch, Moses, and Elijah, it is said that Mary also was taken up in body and soul into glory. That is to say, that by special grace of her Son, she has anticipated the resurrection which all the faithful shall enjoy when Christ comes again. Though the Assumption is not doctrine required to be believed for salvation, for it has no warrant of Scripture, yet this time-tested belief is consistent with the gospel’s teaching, and a testimony to it. For it is in the New Testament that we find the death of a Christian spoken of as “falling asleep”; and this is not a euphemism, but a deep insight into the life we have received in Christ – the grace of eternal life, which begins even now in the body, and which death cannot take away. In the perspective of Christian faith, though death brings sorrow is finally of no great consequence; it is but a falling asleep before we wake again; for Christ by his death and resurrection has conquered death, and for those who believe in him death is merely release from temptation, toil, sin, pain, and sorrow, that we may rest in the peace of paradise. It is but a falling asleep before we rise to the glory of the eternal day. “I laid me down and slept, and rose up again, for the Lord sustained me”.
To celebrate the feast of the Virgin Mary’s “Dormition”, or ‘falling asleep’, is to say something true and important about the life eternal that is already ours, which death cannot take away; to call it “Assumption” is to say something true and important about the glory that shall be ours, in body as well as soul, on the far side of death. The grace of eternal life which is given to us, is the beginning in us glory yet to come; and how fitting it is that the human being by whom the Word was made flesh, so that God might share in the life of man, should be the first to share in the life of God. Very fittingly on this feast we read her Magnificat, her song of exultation in the victory of God: “He hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden… .He that is mighty hath magnified me …. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and exalted the humble and meek”. In this canticle Mary celebrates the great reversal, which turns the world upside down, or rather, right-side up – and leads to the great and final reversal we celebrate today – that life does not end in death, but rather death ends in life. In celebrating her victory and exaltation, we celebrate the victory and exaltation of all Christians, which is nothing else than the victory and exaltation that Christ has already won for us. On this day in Mary we anticipate the fullness of our redemption.
We live in a culture wedded to the lie that this life is all that we have. In the face of death we have trouble thinking, speaking, or acting, with honesty or hope. But this feast is testimony that our hope is not for this life only.