If you were asked where the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary was buried, what would be your answer? If you sensed that it was a trick question, pat yourself on the back. You’ve got a sharp mind. The Catholic Church, by way of the dogma of the Assumption of Our Lady, as officially pronounced in Pope Pius XII’s Apostolic Constitution “Munificentissimus Deus”, teaches that the Mother of God “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” Questions abound from believers and non-believers alike as to what exactly this doctrine attempts to reveal about the fate of Our Lady after she departed this life. Don’t hang your head in frustration if you’re confused. Instead, let’s dig a little deeper into the specifics of this credo.
WHAT HAPPENS TO US AFTER WE DIE?
Before we can truly come to grasp the full meaning of the Assumption, it would be a good idea to review the Church’s teaching on what happens to a person as he or she passes on and penetrates the other side of eternity. Each one of us, immediately after dying, must face what is called a “particular judgment” in which we go before Our Lord to be rewarded with direct entrance into Heaven; to undergo purification prior to admittance into Heaven; or to endure the pain of everlasting separation from God in Hell. Man, composed of both body and soul, despite being redeemed by the saving acts of Jesus, remains subject to a number of consequences of sin, including the decomposition of his body after death. As we all know, the body adheres to the laws of nature and deteriorates accordingly. When Our Lord comes again in glory, He will raise the bodies of all who have died, uniting them yet again with their immortal souls in what we refer to as the “resurrection of the body”. At this point, each man will once more stand before Christ, “who is Truth itself” and “his relationship with God will be laid bare”. As described in the famous parable in the Gospel of Matthew, men will be separated by the Good Shepherd like sheep and goats to perpetually enjoy the beatific vision of God or to be cast off into eternal punishment.
WHY IS MARY EXEMPT FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN?
If, as Pius XII informed us in the same document that proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption, “God does not will to grant…the full effect of the victory over death until the end of time”, and subjugates even the bodies of just men to corruption after death, then why should the Blessed Virgin Mary, a mere human being born of a man and a woman like the rest of us, be exempt from such a penalty? In Mary’s case, unlike the rest of humanity - save for her Son - she entered the world free of the stain of Original Sin at the moment of her conception. Another Marian dogma known as the Immaculate Conception reveals to us that Our Lady was preserved from the sin that was passed on to all men from our first parents, Adam and Eve, by a “singular grace and privilege of Almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ”.
Since Mary never had the least bit of association with sin from the first instant of her existence, does this mean that she did not require a savior to empower her to victory over sin? No, in spite of Our Lady’s unique state of holiness, she was unable to save herself. The effects of Jesus’ victory over sin and death were applied to Mary in advance of the actual events – the passion, death, and Resurrection – taking place. A popular comparison that has been made countless times is the case of a person who is saved from falling into a pit. In the case of all men and women aside from Mary, we are like a person who was running down the road and failed to notice a hole in the ground. The person fell into the hole, was injured and covered in filth, and was later saved by a passerby who climbed down into the ditch and hoisted the victim to safety. In Mary’s case, she is like a person who was running along that same road, unknowingly headed toward the pit. In her case, the heroic passerby made a mad dash across the street, took hold of her arm, and was able to protect her from falling into the pit. The passerby was no less a savior to the person who was spared from falling into the hole than he was to the person whose rescue called for him to descend into the pit himself. You would be correct in saying that the person who was saved prior to the fall was saved in a more perfect way, not harmed by physical injury, nor bathed in mud. Mary came into this world in the same position as Eve, the mother of the human race, meaning that her intellect was unclouded by the effects of sin. She was able to give her free consent to God, through his messenger Gabriel, to allow His Son, who existed from all eternity, to become a man within her womb.
Having established that Mary was indeed saved by her Son in an incomparable manner, it provides the opportunity to reflect on the mystery of why her body was unaffected by the same consequences cast upon the bodies of others who also rely on Christ for their salvation. Looking back to the Old Testament, we see that God commanded the Israelites to construct the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred container which held the stone tablets on which were inscribed the Ten Commandments, as well as the manna (bread from Heaven) and Aaron’s rod, with the utmost specifications. It was mandated that the Ark be made of incorruptible wood as a sign of the holy contents to be held therein. Men who were to carry the Ark in procession were required to be sanctified. Since God the Father was so very particular when overseeing the design and maintenance of an Ark that held mere “things”, how much more so would He look after Mary, the new Ark, who would hold within her the body of Our Lord? If one is able to accept the Biblical story about the care taken in regard to the Ark of the Old Covenant, it should not be too difficult to also believe that God went to great lengths to preserve the Virgin Mary from sin and its consequences.
