Christians (as well as Muslims and others) recognise Jesus’ mother Mary as special. Along with every Sunday and Christmas, the feast of Assumption is a Holy Day of Obligation in Australia. We take celebration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary seriously! Why?

Most miraculous of mothers, Mary is central to the wonderful event of Jesus’ Incarnation, the extraordinary entwining of the Creator with creation. Joyfully she proclaimed God’s intervention in the world (Luke 1:39-56), bearing the Christ child, raising him to adulthood, was his faithful disciple at the foot of his cross, gathering in that upper room with his other disciples after his crucifixion and again at the Pentecost event which we see as the birth of the Church.

Mary is assumed to be a major source of Luke’s gospel; her story intimately recounted as only she could. Mary’s joyful “Magnificat”, prayed every day in the prayer of the church, models faithful love of the Lord and openness to God’s will. Scripture says nothing definitive about post-Pentecost Mary but for the lyrical passages in Apocalypse (Apoc 11:19, 12:1-6, 10) taken to refer to her, about a woman adorned with the sun defying a dragon with a star dragging tail. The miraculous circumstances of her motherhood, her proclamation of faith and her exemplary life make Mary unique. We can imagine how the earliest church revered her and certainly she has been venerated in the Church since the second century.

From the fifth century the church has celebrated Mary’s death and, though there were various fables and traditions about Mary post-Pentecost, understanding of her Assumption grew over the centuries. One of only two clear examples of Papal Infallibility, the Church has taught since 1950 that the Virgin Mary "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory". (Pope Pius 12^thMunificentissimus Deus).

Deacon Mark Kelly