On the 1 November 1950 the Venerable Pope Pius XII declared that “by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: 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.” Munificentissimus Deus, 44
This solemn dogmatic definition indicates the bodily nature of the after life and thereby strengthens our hope in eternal life.
The creedal dogmas of the final judgment, heaven, hell and the intermediate state of purgatory are presupposed by the doctrine of the bodily assumption of the Mother of God. Venerable Pius in his dogmatic document showed how death and judgment are punishments due to sin stating: “God does not grant to the just the full effect of victory over death until the end of time has come.” (Ibid., 4) “…The bodies of even the just are corrupted after death, and only on the last day will they be joined, each in its own glorious soul.” The body and soul are separated for a time at death and the body normally undergoes corruption.
However, Mary was preserved, by a special grace, from original sin and the consequent law of corruption. She is granted special exemption from the law of death and the usual waiting for the last day. Her exemption is proven in three moments: in the Immaculate Conception and in the angelic salutation “full of grace” and in the Virginal Birth. “God, who by an entirely unique privilege, preserved Mary from sin by her Immaculate Conception [and kept her a virgin through childbirth] exempted her from the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and so she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body. (Ibid., 5, 18) And since she is proclaimed “full of grace” one realizes that there is no corruption in her. Death and corruption are punishments due to sin, which punishments this Immaculate Virgin never deserved, she alone always being truly worthy of uninhibited union with the Most High God.
Moreover, Mary Immaculate’s glorious assumption, being the assumption of a woman, body and soul, is an early fulfillment of the last two articles of the Christian Creed (and even a cause of the knowledge of those truths of faith): “I believe in the resurrection of the body” and “I believe in the life everlasting.” A mere mortal man is in heaven in the person of the perfect Woman Maria. Our hope for our bodily incorruption on the last day is greatly strengthened today as we are assured in this ancient feast and modern definition of faith that together with Christ, the heavenly King, is also the soul and body of [the heavenly Queen—the Woman] who has already obtained the reward of heavenly glory in her flesh.
This solemn dogmatic definition indicates the bodily nature of the after life and thereby strengthens our hope in eternal life.
The creedal dogmas of the final judgment, heaven, hell and the intermediate state of purgatory are presupposed by the doctrine of the bodily assumption of the Mother of God. Venerable Pius in his dogmatic document showed how death and judgment are punishments due to sin stating: “God does not grant to the just the full effect of victory over death until the end of time has come.” (Ibid., 4) “…The bodies of even the just are corrupted after death, and only on the last day will they be joined, each in its own glorious soul.” The body and soul are separated for a time at death and the body normally undergoes corruption.
However, Mary was preserved, by a special grace, from original sin and the consequent law of corruption. She is granted special exemption from the law of death and the usual waiting for the last day. Her exemption is proven in three moments: in the Immaculate Conception and in the angelic salutation “full of grace” and in the Virginal Birth. “God, who by an entirely unique privilege, preserved Mary from sin by her Immaculate Conception [and kept her a virgin through childbirth] exempted her from the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and so she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body. (Ibid., 5, 18) And since she is proclaimed “full of grace” one realizes that there is no corruption in her. Death and corruption are punishments due to sin, which punishments this Immaculate Virgin never deserved, she alone always being truly worthy of uninhibited union with the Most High God.
Moreover, Mary Immaculate’s glorious assumption, being the assumption of a woman, body and soul, is an early fulfillment of the last two articles of the Christian Creed (and even a cause of the knowledge of those truths of faith): “I believe in the resurrection of the body” and “I believe in the life everlasting.” A mere mortal man is in heaven in the person of the perfect Woman Maria. Our hope for our bodily incorruption on the last day is greatly strengthened today as we are assured in this ancient feast and modern definition of faith that together with Christ, the heavenly King, is also the soul and body of [the heavenly Queen—the Woman] who has already obtained the reward of heavenly glory in her flesh.
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