The Assumption of Mary
Yesterday was the Feast of the Assumption of Mary in the Roman Catholic Church. Most Protestants have a habit of looking askance at this kind of attention given to Mary, the Mother of our Lord. To some degree, I understand… but only to some degree.
However, I struggle with this part of Catholic dogma. Pope Pius XII wrote: Scripture portrays the loving Mother of God, almost before our very eyes, as most intimately united with her divine Son and always sharing in his destiny. (Munificentissimus Deus) I don’t know what to make of this. Pius, as, I suppose, every pope thereafter, says that this is all rooted in scripture. But I don’t see it so clearly.
Now, I have to admit that there are probably tons of things that are really and truly there in the scriptures that I don’t see. I admit that I’m not the sharpest knife in the scriptural drawer. But it seems to me that if the infinitesimal things pointed to in the scriptures are the source of this kind of dogma, what of other things like when Jesus says Do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. (Matt 23:9)
I am not, by any stretch, condemning the Catholic Church on these issues. In fact, I am very much pro-Catholic (although I am not – yet – Catholic myself). I’m just trying to understand.
That Mary is exalted so highly in the Roman church is, I think, generally not a bad thing. That Mary is almost ignored in large sectors of the Protestant church is. And I have heard it said that the kind of attention that some Catholics give to Mary is not required of all Catholics. Indeed, it seems a Catholic can not give a high degree of attention to the Mother of God and still be considered a “good Catholic.” But we’re talking dogma, here. The bodily assumption of Mary is something the Roman church holds to be every bit as authentic truth as the hypostatic union, the dual nature, of Christ… and, apparently, just as scriptural.
Does the Orthodox Church accept the bodily assumption of Mary as dogma (or whatever their equivalent of dogma is)?
posted by Jim at 5:36 AM
3 Comments:
Review the extensive conversation at Aug 15, The Assumption of Mary and Protestants. Lots of musings, some helpful and some not. I confess I've not had the time to read/process through them all.
You might be interested in reading the book i have written with an Evangelical friend. It is called 'Mary--a Catholic Evangelical Debate'. It goes into all these issues from both sides. It is available through my website: www.dwightlongenecker.com
According to my copy of the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church: "It is now generally agreed that the belief [in the assumption] was unknown in the earliest ages of the Church. ... It is first met with in certain NT apocrypha dating from the later 4th cent. onwards, some of them Gnostic in sympathy. ...
"The Greek Church was, however, divided as to the date [for observing the feast]....
"In the E[astern] Church belief in the corporal assumption of the BVM is general, though prob. in terms less precise than those of the Roman definition."
So, yes, the Orthodox Church does hold this doctrine. But, i'm with you in that I don't find it in Scripture.
+ + + Kurt
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