Where was *Mary* assumed to? (Heaven is not a *Place*)

We must be very clear on this point: The Assumption is not a metaphor. The Blessed Virgin Mary was really taken up, her physical body was transformed. Pope Pius XII in Munificentissimus Deus (1950) declared that Mary, “after the completion of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven.” Both BODY and SOUL!

This means that her physical body was transformed and glorified (in a manner identical to Christ’s after his Resurrection), her soul was perfected with the Beatific Vision, and she was taken up.

Is heaven a place? In the General Audience of 21 July 1999, Pope John Paul II stated that heaven “is neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity.”

In this statement, as (almost) always, the great Holy Father was in perfect accord with St. Thomas Aquinas – “Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us”.

What John Paul II wished to stress, and what is especially important to consider today, is that heaven is not to be understood in terrestrial terms.

Heaven is primarily a state of being and is certainly not a ‘place’ in the worldly sense of the term. Nevertheless, we come to a difficulty when we ask:

The simplest answer is: Heaven! But then we wonder: If heaven isn’t a place in the ordinary sense of the word, how could there be real human bodies present there?

The words of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (who taught John Paul II and oversaw his doctoral work) are most helpful: “Heaven means this place, and especially this condition, of supreme beatitude. Had God created no bodies, but only pure spirits, heaven would not need to be a place; it would signify merely the state of the angels who rejoice in the possession of God.

But in fact heaven is also a place. There we find the humanity of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels, and the souls of the saints. Though we cannot say with certitude where this place is to be found, or what its relation is to the whole universe, revelation does not allow us to doubt of its existence.”

Now do not think that John Paul II had contradicted his teacher when he said that heaven is not a physical place in the clouds! Garrigou-Lagrange and the great Pontiff are both getting at the same point: Heaven is first and foremost union with God; secondarily, heaven is the place where the bodies of Jesus and Mary abide, but this ‘place’ is not like every other place we think of – its relation to our universe is not clear.

Glorified bodies are very different than non-glorified bodies (though they are essentially the same). A glorified body does not move and take up space in exactly the same way as a non-glorified body does. Still, the glorified bodies of Jesus and Mary are somewhere, but this ‘somewhere’ will necessarily be a ‘place’ which is ‘glorified’ – just as the glorified body is different from non-glorified body, it resides in a ‘glorified place’ which is different from a non-glorified physical place.

Where is heaven? The simple answer is: This has not yet been revealed to us. However, we can say that it is certainly not on earth. Neither is it within the earth. It is not in clouds either. Heaven may be somewhere in our universe, far off – though we must be careful not to fall back into our terrestrial categories of space, distance, and location.

Perhaps it is most likely that heaven is outside the universe in what some Thomists have called “uncontained place”. In ST III, q.57, a.4, ad 2 (which is not in the oldest and best manuscripts) we read: “A place implies the notion of containing; hence the first container has the formality of first place, and such is the first heaven. Therefore, bodies need themselves to be in a place, insofar as they are contained by a heavenly body. But glorified bodies, Christ’s especially, do not stand in need of being so contained, because they draw nothing from the heavenly bodies, but from God through the soul.

So there is nothing to prevent Christ’s body from being beyond the containing radius of the heavenly bodies, and not in a containing place. Nor is there need for a vacuum to exist outside heaven, since there is no place there, nor is there any potentiality susceptive of a body, but the potentiality of reaching thither lies in Christ.”

This argument from the Summa claims that, because the glorified body in no way relies upon the non-glorified world, neither does it need to be contained in the universe. Thus, the bodies of Jesus and Mary may in fact be outside of the universe, outside of space and time, no longer contained by place. There is no space or place outside of the universe, but this is where the bodies of Christ and Mary are; since they need not be contained by physical place.

Therefore, it seems most likely that heaven is outside of our universe. It is not a ‘place’ as we usually think of ‘place’, but is a ‘non-containing place’, a ‘glorified place’. The glorified physical bodies of Jesus and Mary reside there

caww:

The OT canon that the early CHurch used, and the one that was defined in the late 4th century by the Catholic Church at the various Councils of that time [Rome 382 AD, Hippo 393 AD, Carthage 397 AD], and as the letters of St. Augustine at that same time and Pope Innocent in 405 AD confirm, which is the OT canon of the Catholic and Orthodox Church, does have prayers for the dead (2 Macabees 12:42-46). Christ Resurrection occurrred first, and thus by his paschal mystery, he took Mary up into heaven [i.e. Mary was assumed into heaven by God’ power] and thus what Christ Resurrection accomplished for Mary, is a prefigurement of what happens to all the faithful who die in God’s Grace.

You believe that Mary’s role was just “God findig a woman to give birth to CHrist” and is it over, is your view, but is not the view of the Patristic Tradition of the Early Church Fathers. None of them share your view.

I do indeed believe in the resurrection of the dead. I just don’t believe Mary got to be resurrected early. I believe she will be resurrected with you and me and everybody else, on the last day, like the Bible says.

Elijah and Enoch went to heaven directly, without dying. They were special cases. Not sinless. But they got to avoid dying, a great blessing.

Mary is not mentioned as having any special occurrence having to do with her death or any ascension into heaven.

SaraJohnson and Tarap:

The Assumption has nothing to do with making Mary
equal to God. Tarap is correct, the Assumption relates to what God’s Grace has done to Mary.

The Assumption therefore is rooted in Christological theology, all of it, both Incarnation and passion, death and resurrection, ascension into heaven. It also relates to Catholic soteriology, which is not only grounded in the paschal mystery [passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ], is also is grounded in the orthodox doctrine of Christ’s Incarnation.

Thomas Howard, in Evangelical is Not Enough (p. 36) writes: “The Incarnation took all that properly belongs to our humanity and delivered it back to us, redeemed. All of our inclinations and appetites and capacities and yearnings and proclivities are purified and gathered up and glorified by Christ.”

So when Catholics read we are to “become partakes of the divine nature (cf 2 Peter 4), this speaks of the human nature being transformed and glorified by Christ. Other passages speak of this as well. For example, St. Paul writes: “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself” (c.f. Phil 3:20-21).

Similar to St. Paul and St. Peter, St. John makes a reference to being like God. For example, St. John writes: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure as he is pure” (c.f. 1 John 3:2-3).

So I don’t know what you learned in the Catholic Church growing up. Perhaps you learned it wrong, or don’t remember or perhaps, and this is a likely case given that religous education in the Catholic Church in the 70’s and 80’s “stunk”, you were not taught orthodox Catholic Doctrine.

Thanks be to God that Pope John Paul II commissioned the New Catechism, which was published in 1992 and Pope Benedict is now Pope as catecheses is getting back on track.

There is an interesting phenomenon regarding child gestation. The cells of the placenta and umbilicus are all made by the gestating child, and some few remain behind, alive inside the mother’s womb after child birth. These cells are ‘of the child’, so when Mary birthed Jesus, she likely retained a few cells that He built during his gestation. These cells would never see destruction, if the notion of Mary’s assumption is correct. I kind of like to think of it that way ... and I’m not even a Catholic.

There are other things that cannot be ignored and must be considered..................

Of note is...... Mary brought a sacrifice of two turtledoves in accord to Jewish law in Leviticus chapter 12. One was for a burnt offering, the other was for a sin offering..........This couldn’t have been for the child Jesus, who was the Holy one, the sinless spotless lamb of God. ......This must have been for her own uncleanness..... Mary’s conformity to the law is an admission she was a sinner needing to be restored by cleansing, only sinners need cleansing.

If Mary ascended to heaven like Jesus, this incredible act of someone raised in a resurrection or never dying would certainly be recorded in Scripture. Yet it is suspiciously omitted from John’s writings, .......the one who she was entrusted to be looked after by Jesus. ............John’s last book the Revelation was written 85-90 A.D...Neither John nor any historian of the early church records this.

This is an unknown doctrinal event that evolved until it was ratified in 1854............... Roman Catholic tradition has made speculation into doctrine with Mary being guarded from actual sin by becoming sinless........This concept was around from about the twelfth century, and was developed into a papal decree of December 8, 1854.................... On November 1, 1950, the bull Munificentissimus Deus declared the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. This dogma asserts “that the Virgin Mary, the Immaculate Mother of God, when the course of her life was finished, was taken up, body and soul, into the glory of heaven” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 32 [1950], pp. 753-73). source: Let us reason.

“The scriptures the Bereans were searching were the OT scriptures. That’s all that existed for Christians then. I’m glad to know that you limit yourself to the OT for your doctrine.”

That is a sarcastic comment. I am having civil conservations here, and am not interested in playing gotcha games.

I have not implied that I limit myself to the OT. I know the OT was the only thing available to the Bereans at the time. But it is still Scripture, and the Bereans were commended for searching it, without the benefit of some special body of interpreters.

Consider Romans 3:10-12, buttressing the point. It is quite adamant:

“As it is written:
“ There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.””

Not a lot of wiggle room, there.

I don’t believe I am adding a gloss to note that there are no exceptions mentioned to the God’s statement that all have sinned. I simply see no exception there. “All” means “all,” in my opinion. I believe Scripture is clear.

Persevero:

Again, “Ascension” and “Assumption” are two distinct terms relating to 2 different, albeit, related Doctrines. Ascension refers to Christ “ascending into heaven”, which means by his own power since he is the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity. The Assumption refers to Mary being “taken up body and soul” after her earthly life [refered to as dormition in theological language, or falling asleep] and thus Mary being taken up is done thru and by the God’s power and Grace and thus is indeed a prefigurement of what God’s Passion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven means for us, it means that all of us, who die in communion with God will one day be assumed into heaven just as Mary and all those believers have before us.

“The Assumption refers to Mary being “taken up body and soul” after her earthly life [refered to as dormition in theological language, or falling asleep] and thus Mary being taken up is done thru and by the God’s power and Grace and thus is indeed a prefigurement of what God’s Passion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven means for us, it means that all of us, who die in communion with God will one day be assumed into heaven just as Mary and all those believers have before us.”

I appreciate the explanation, but this event is not recorded in Scripture.

No, the event is not preserved in Scripture. But it is preserved in the tradition of that same Church that preserved what Scripture we have. And I ask you to note that the New Testament was never intended to be a comprendium of all doctrine, nor a history of of the Church. Not to trivilize, but it has some of the characteristics of a family scrapbook,where generations later, the descendents of the compilers do not know anything about that guy with his arm around Uncle Harry except his name, What does the Bible tell us about Apollos, a man whom Paul greatly admired? That he was an apostle of the Lord, a preacher of great effectiveness. To many other names, no deeds are attached.

"But it is preserved in the tradition of that same Church that preserved what Scripture we have."

The Bible "preserved" by Romee (the Western/Minority Text) is that with its source in North Afracan manuscripts that sat in the hands of Alexandrian corrupters for the first 300 years of Christianity until Constanine ordered 50 copies of it brought to Rome.

All the while, common, evangelistic Christians had been for those 300 years copying and re-copying the overwhelming majority of the New Testament manuscripts that are the Antiochan/Byzantine text.

These soul winning believers, never connected with Vaticanism, had already a full New Testament in Latin 200 years before Jerome, and translations in central European languages as they moved generally northwest, far away from Vaticanist priests and metropolitan bishops.

The "assumption of Mary" was not even declared until Mariolatry needed a serious booster shot. What in the world did pre-19th century folks ever do without it?

“No, I am saving that we are all HOLY, or as the evangelicals put it, SAVED, to the extent that we do the will of God. Mary was herself redeemed by serving as the mother of the Lord.”

OK now you’re saying that it’s a works based salvation? Mary is not saved because Jesus died on the cross for her (and everyone elses) but because she gave birth? And we are not saved unless we are doing the “will of God”? You’ve got it backwards, we do the “will of God” because we are saved, not to be saved.

“As to Mary’s” sin,” please point out where in the Bible she is shown to be a sinner?”

Try Genesis, once Adam fell we all inherited the sin disease since we all all “sons of Adam”, including Mary. Unless you’re also advocating the “immaculate conception” and if you are please show me where in the Word of God that little miracle is detailed since it would be an extremely important topic it should appear in at least two or three different places (as is every other important theological concept). And don’t bother with the church tradition garbage, read the bible and see what Jesus thought of the traditions of the Jews (hint, he wasn’t too pleased with it).

The Catholic church has some good points and doesn’t budge on some of the essentials of the faith (unlike most mainline protestant churches which have strayed so far off the true path the you couldn’t call them Christian any more). However, this obsession with Mary is beyond bizarre and seems more in line with the old Babylonian mystery religion than anything that you’d find in the Bible. Yes she played a key role in the birth of Christ, but she wasn’t some sinless, sexless (yes she did have other children), near-divine woman. She was as human and sinful as we all are. Also, it does not appear that she payed all that significant of a role in the church and if she was as Catholics say she was then where is the evidence in the Bible?

Nor did they bear witness to the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul. Yet these occured. I suppose you are saying that such a remarkable event would have been recorded. But could it not be simply that they did not hear of it? What we can all accept is the fact that Mary did not loom large in the public affairs of the Church. To the Church, her great standing is all in retrospect, as we wonder the nature of her son. According to one story she passed away in Jerusalem only a few years after Pentecost, where she is last mentioned. Yet she as the Virgin Mother is crucial to any discussion of the true nature of Christ. It was no accident that during the 4th Century, many churches were dedicated in her honor as her son was accepted as divine even by the Roman emperor. She is theotokos, and so the person who mattered so little to the world of the First Century, becomes of of the most celebrated of persons as the mother of Our Lord. The meek and subservient maiden become the Queen of heaven.

No, I mean where in the Bible is Mary shown as sinning? As to the Immaculate Conception, that has to be understood in the context of Mary as the ark of the new covenant. How could the Son of God enter into an impure vessel? One answer would be that she was purified at the time of the Annunciation. But evangelicals seems to deny even that, saying that she remained a sinner. That seems unlikely. The early Church spoke of Mary as the New Eve, as obedient to God's will as the first Even was disobedient. But the first Even was created without sin, and why not the new Eve? We believe that God created the perfect rectacle for his Incarnation. The alternative view that the Virgin Birth was simply a sign that Jesus was more exaulted than John the Baptist lendsitself--we think--to the Arian view which has it it that Jesus was no more than a man.

“No, I mean where in the Bible is Mary shown as sinning?”

Oh come on! Use a little common sense, please! There are ton’s of people in the Bible that were not “shown as sinning”, does that mean that they are sinless? How about Joseph? No where in the long story does he sin so I guess that means that he’s sinless. I’m not shown as sinning in the Bible so I must be sinless as well! What a crock! You put something that isn’t there (Mary’s sinlessness) but willfully ignore what the Bible clearly states (we all ALL sinners, no exceptions other than Jesus are ever stated and his sinlessness is explicitly stated several times!).

Other than that all that you’ve written is a bunch of non-sense. They don’t even hold together very well as an analogy of Adam and Eve (Eve was created from Adam — Christ was created from Mary? sorry sequence doesn’t work if it was an analogy it should be Mary was created from Christ but that isn’t what happened.).

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