The sacred Virgin and her Son had but one soul,
but one heart, and but one life,
so that the Blessed Mother, although living,
yet did not live herself but rather her Son lived in her!
...There was no longer a union but rather
a unity of heart, soul, and life
between this Mother and this Son.
--St. Francis de Sales
The dogma of the Assumption of Mary describes the full salvation of this prime disciple of Jesus.
In the Apostles’ Creed, we speak of our hope for "the resurrection of the body." Mary, assumed body and soul into heaven, has experienced precisely this resurrection and hence becomes a sign of hope for the rest of the human race.
When we speak of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother’s body, we are not envisioning a journey through space, as though Mary moved up into the sky. The "heavens" are a rich and consistent biblical symbol for the transcendent, for a manner of existence that lies beyond our familiar dimensions of space and time.
The Assumption of Mary means that the Blessed Mother was "translated," in the totality of her being, from this dimensional system to the higher one for which we use the term "heaven." Mary, who exists now in this other world, is not so much somewhere else as somehow else, and this helps to explain why we can speak of her, especially in her heavenly state, interceding, helping us, and praying for us.
THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY
MILL VALLEY!
Image source: https://www.amormeus.org/en/blog/vigil-feast-of-the-assumption/
Quotation source (St. Francis de Sales)
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