(from the link you have)...47. It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul …
This is just my opinion, each you will believe what you will believe and it is not my intent to put anyone down or say you should believe this or that…you each must choose and I pray the you choose to believe the true gospel message of Christ as our Savior.
That being said I guess what gets me is that no where did Peter or Paul nor any author of biblical text mention word one about the assumption of Mary (and I think --, Catholics correct me here if I'm wrong -- that the Catholic Church declares the Bible to be the inspired Word of God from the Holy Spirit)...Also, I cannot find any Church/apostolic tradition outside the idea popping up around the 4th century at the earliest…doesn't that seem a bit odd? If it were a true tradition of the apostles wouldn’t it have been a tradition from the earliest of church times? After all, each of the apostles lived in the same time period as Mary and it would seem that the apostles would pass this tradition on if it were A) true and necessary to be known for salvation and B) to be followed as strongly as the Catholic Church (via the variious Papal dogmas) commands it to be followed today…Consider this, only two humans were full body assumed (please correct me if I am wrong) Elijah and Jesus and both were documented in the Bible. Knowing this, why would this extremely important truth of Mary's assumption not be added to the New Testament via John who was now Mary’s son as commanded by Christ on the cross? Wouldn’t he of all people joyfully be spreading this miracle of Mary’s assumption or did he rather just ignore to tell his fellow believers? Many theories could arise from this but the two that seem to stick out to me are 1) it did not actually occur or 2) even if it did it was not relevant to the message of the gospel and therefore was not used to convert the lost souls to Christ
Don't get me wrong, Mary is a very important person in the plan of God for our salvation and she is and should be granted the respect of all Christians as a great example for us in being devoted to Christ by following his teachings and also doing what we all should do BELIEVE......Mary clearly understood the Jesus was her Savior and was devoted to Him and was likely a great mom...Additionally, by Mary being chosen by God the promise that the Messiah would be of the lineage of David was undisputedly fulfilled...I guess the bottom line is what the Gospel says clearly rings true regardless of what side of the fence any of us fall on in this matter...Only thru belief in the fulfillment of the promise of Christ's death and resurrection can we be saved (of course along with repentance of our sin and baptism as decreed)...can't we just focus on that? After all it’s clear Mary herself made that her focus!
I do have a question about the sinlessness of Mary that I’ve longed to ask and this seems to be a good format for this…and again this is asked in a respectful tone, I’m just curious to hear from a Catholic point of view…here goes (forgive me, it's late and my question below kind of flows all over the place):
How can the Pope decree (according to the Catholic faith, he is inspired by the Holy Spirit and infalliby did so in his dogma decree) that Mary was sinless when scripture (aka the inspired Word of God thru the Holy Spirit) tells us only one was sinless and that this person was Christ? Additionally I cannot find any source of early Church/apostolic traditions from AD 33-200 that have any mention of Mary being exempt from original sin or was sinless). It would appear that the Holy Spirit is contradicting himself when comparing the explicit truths declared in the Popes dogma of Mary's sinlessness and scripture's teaching of one sinless person, Christ. We are then asked to choose which to believe, the scripture that states that only one, who is Christ, is without sin or the dogma decree of the Pope that in addition to Christ, Mary also is sinless, based on the authority of the apostolic tradition and the Church. Only one of these truths can stand; for if the Pope's dogma decree of there being two, not just one, sinless is true then the scripture of only one sinless cannot be true for as we know Christ is not Mary nor is Mary, Christ they are two unique individuals...Please explain how these two statements, which are both claimed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, do not fully contradict each other and which truth is therefore false.
Thanks for your respectful answers...
"I cannot find any Church/apostolic tradition outside the idea popping up around the 4th century at the earliest…doesn't that seem a bit odd? If it were a true tradition of the apostles wouldn’t it have been a tradition from the earliest of church times?"
There is evidence that this goes back earlier than the 4th Century. First, let's remember the Christological controversies going on during the 300's. Arianism was rife throughout the Church. Much ado was made over "one dipthong", the letter "i" add to homoousious (I hope I spelled that correctly!). Was Jesus the essence of God, or was He like the essence of God. Seems like a minor issue on the face of it, one letter. Yet, people were KILLING each other over it. Bishops were being lynched. People took their faith seriously. Don't you find it strange that NO ONE says a WORD, NO ONE says "wait, that's not in the Scripture", when the Church places the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of Christ into the Liturgical Calendar in the 300's. NO ONE. The sense of the Faithful just KNEW that it was the correct thing to do. WHY do you think that was the case? Because it was a commonly held belief that Jesus would protect His mother from corruption. As He did before she was born, so He did after she died. IT IS FITTING - those are the words the Church Fathers use over and over again when discussing Mary. And the Church has said that the sense of the faithful over the course of time is infallible. The Holy Spirit dwells within the Church.
Another thing to consider is the Catholic love of relics of the saints. During this time (into the Medieval period), Catholics would note the places of famous saints, have particular clothing and such available for veneration, etc. WHERE WAS MARY'S RELICS? WHERE WAS MARY'S TOMB? Don't you think that would be known, if she had died? Don't you think the various local churches would have made the claim? Nowhere do we find this claim. Does that raise some questions?
And finally, Revelation 12:1 "A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" "She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all nations with an iron rod." Rev 12:5. And the battle with the dragon. We know that Scripture has several meanings. The literal is one, allegory is another. Certainly, these passages refer to the Church. HOWEVER, who gave birth to THE male son? Literally, the passage refers to Mary. Mary is seen as "the woman" of Genesis 3:15 and "the woman" of Rev 12:17. Mary is seen over and over by the Church as a symbol of the Church. That's why Mary is seen as the New Eve, as the Mother of the Church (Christ is her son, and the Body is the Church).
From this and much more, we can see that Scripture implies that Mary was assumed into heaven, and so forth. It is fitting, says the Church, and is believed by the faithful, even in times when the definitions of the faith were so critical, such as during Nicene.
Regards