From Father Steven - August 16th

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

​This weekend we celebrated the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. However, this event is not well known to us. Because it is such an important day for us, the Church has added this day as a Holyday of obligation, which means that everyone needs to celebrate this Solemnity. This year it fell on Saturday, so it loses the obligation of attending mass. Some people have questions about this celebration so I thought that it would helpful to clarify to everyone what we celebrate. Here is an article that I found online in Spanish that I translated: 1. You must know what a dogma means - A dogma is a truth of absolute, definitive, infallible, irrevocable and unquestionable faith revealed by God through the Bible or Sacred Tradition. After being proclaimed, it cannot be repealed or denied, neither by the Pope nor by conciliar decision. For a truth to become dogma, it must be proposed directly by the Catholic Church to the faithful as part of their faith and doctrine, through a solemn and infallible definition by the Supreme Magisterium of the Church. 2. "Assumption" does not mean the same as "Ascension" - According to the tradition and theology of the Catholic Church, the Assumption is the celebration of when the body and soul of the Virgin Mary were glorified and taken to Heaven at the end of her earthly life. It is not to be confused with the Ascension, which refers to Jesus Christ. It is said that the resurrection of the bodies will take place at the end of time, but in the case of the Virgin Mary this fact was anticipated by a singular privilege. This dogma is also celebrated by the Orthodox Church. 3. The dogma was proclaimed 170 years ago by Pius XII - Since 1849, various petitions for the Assumption of the Virgin to be declared a dogma of faith began to arrive at the Holy See. It was Pope Pius XII who, on November 1, 1950, published the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus that proclaims the dogma with these words: “After raising many and repeated prayers to God and invoking the light of the Spirit of Truth, to the glory of Almighty God, who gave the Virgin Mary his peculiar benevolence; for the honor of his Son, immortal King of the centuries and conqueror of sin and death; To increase the glory of the same august Mother and to the joy and joy of the whole Church, with the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and with our own, we pronounce, declare and define to be divinely revealed dogma, that The Immaculate Mother of God, always Virgin Mary, after completing the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory ”. 4. The Assumption of Mary is anticipation of our own resurrection - This part has a double objective: the happy departure of Mary from this life and the Assumption of her body into heaven. The answer to why it is important for Catholics is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says in number 966: “The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin constitutes a singular participation in the Resurrection of her Son and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians ”. The importance that the Assumption of the Virgin has for all of us is given in the relationship that it has between the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and our resurrection. The fact that Mary is in body and soul already glorified in Heaven is the anticipation of our own resurrection, since she is a human being like us. 5. The Virgin did not experience corruption in her body at the end of her earthly life - Scripture does not give details about the last years of Mary on earth from Pentecost to the Assumption, we only know that the Virgin was entrusted by Jesus to Saint John. When declaring the dogma of the Assumption of Mary, Pius XII did not want to decide if the Virgin died and was resurrected immediately, or if she went directly to heaven. Many theologians think that the Virgin died to be more like Jesus, but others maintain that the "Transit of Mary" or Dormition occurred, which has been celebrated in the East since the first centuries. In what both positions coincide is that the Virgin Mary, by a special privilege of God, did not experience the corruption of her body and was assumed into heaven, where she reigns alive and glorious, together with Jesus. Source:https://www.aciprensa.com/noticias/5-claves-para-entender-el-dogma-de-la-asuncion-de-la-virgenmaria-18599?noredirect=1#noredirect God Bless, Fr. Steven Aug