Every year, August 15th marks the Catholic Holy Day of Obligation of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In Catholic dogma, Mary did not die. Instead, she underwent dormition, or fell asleep, and was risen body and soul into heaven.

It is one of the oldest traditions of the church, dating back to the fifth and sixth centuries A.D and the writings of the Apostle John. In 1950, Pope Pius XII, exercising his right of papal infallibility, declared this to be an official teaching of the Catholic church. Of such great importance was this teaching, it was declared that “if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.”

Pope Pius spoke of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. “She, by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.” Given this, we are then taught that “Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, was from the very beginning free from the taint of original sin.”

Not only did Mary not suffer from original sin, she remained sinless throughout her life. “Mary, the virgin Mother of God, was incorrupt and had been taken up into heaven to be in keeping, not only with her divine motherhood, but also with the special holiness of her virginal body. You are she who, as it is written, appears in beauty, and your virginal body is all holy, all chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God, so that it is henceforth completely exempt from dissolution into dust. Though still human, it is changed into the heavenly life of incorruptibility, truly living and glorious, undamaged and sharing in perfect life… She alone merited to conceive the true God of true God, whom as a virgin, she brought forth, to whom as a virgin she gave milk, fondling him in her lap, and in all things she waited upon him with loving care… Jesus did not wish to have the body of Mary corrupted after death, since it would have redounded to his own dishonor to have her virginal flesh, from which he himself had assumed flesh, reduced to dust.”

Let The Blasphemy Begin

I went to mass last night, on the eve of this feast. I played piano as I have done for hundreds of masses. I listened to our very young priest give his homily. He spoke of Mary’s pains of childbirth. He spoke of Mary watching her young son grow up, learning the trade of his father. He spoke of the pain Mary must have felt, watching her son die a terrible death by crucifixion. He spoke of the agony Mary would have experienced, having to bury her son.

He also spoke of the mysticism of Mary — the lack of original sin, the holiness of her virginity, that her virginity was a sign of her perfect devotion to God, her falling asleep without experiencing death, her rising to heaven uncorrupted, and her reunion with her son.

It was at this point that I wanted to get up and leave. If I weren’t there under obligation of ministry, I might have. Why do we cling so tightly to the magic and myth of our faith? Can we still have faith in one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic church while moving past the ancient tales?

A Mary We All Can Believe In

Mary was a mother. She gave birth to a son, Jesus. She nursed him. She raised him. She dressed him. She prepared dinners. She put him to bed at night.

Christ came to save us, not because we are sinners or fallen from grace, but because we needed a model for life. He came to teach, through words and actions, how to love one another. We were saved, not by his death, not by his resurrection, but by his life.

Jesus taught with parables and stories. He was rarely direct with his words, and when he was direct, he was controversial. I can only imagine how the wealthy must have reacted when Jesus said, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When he spoke, he spoke with authority. He commanded presence and attention. When he spoke, everyone listened, rich and poor alike.

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” That abundance of life is what comes from loving those around us.

Who is it who first shapes our views? Who is it who sings to us? Who is it teaches us the love that we share with others? It is our mothers. It is from our moms that we learn mercy and compassion. If Jesus was so great an embodiment of God’s eternal love for us, then who would have taught this love to Jesus?

Mary.

It was this same woman, Mary, who later watched her son, beaten and battered, die on a cross. No parent wants their child to suffer. Which is the greater suffering? To be beaten or to watch your child be ruthlessly, viciously beaten. What parent wouldn’t immediately take the scourging upon themselves, rather than watch their own child go through the same torment? And, when it was all over, Mary had to help prepare her son’s body for burial and lay him to rest. No parent should have to bury their child.

Mary was indeed great in her faith. Not because of myth and magic. Not because she never had sex. Not because, somehow, she didn’t die. She was great because she was a mother.