Assumption and Dormition of the Virgin Mary

See also: Virgin Mary, Immaculate Conception of Mary.

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Traditional representation of the Assumption of Mary

The Dormition and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary refer to two successive moments of her end of earthly life on earth.

Her Dormition marks her actual end of earthly life. It is characterized by sleep rather than death, hence the term "dormition" (from Latin "dormire" meaning "to sleep"). The term "passing" is also used. This event affirms that Mary did not experience the corruption of the tomb. It is especially celebrated in the Orthodox tradition.

Her Assumption is the affirmation that after her earthly life ended, the Virgin Mary was taken up body and Soul into Heaven. This belief is mainly spread within the Roman Catholic Church, where it is considered a dogma of faith since its proclamation by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950. - on the Vatican website.

The circumstances of the Virgin Mary's end of life are not reported in the Gospels but come from a well-established tradition.

In Tradition

Until the mid-4th century, there was no text about the Virgin Mary's end of life. The first source is that of Saint Epiphanius (310–403), who wrote: "We do not know either the death of Mary, nor if she died. […] I do not say that she remained immortal, but I also do not decide that she is mortal". This Father, noted Mgr Laurentin, very knowledgeable of all the traditions of the Holy Land, could not say more clearly that he ignores everything concerning Mary's end. He speaks neither of Dormition nor Assumption but considers that the Holy Spirit has Hidden this mystery from us so as not to strike the mind by the "greatness of the wonder".

Apocryphal accounts of Mary's passage to heaven (Transitus Mariæ) mainly flourished in the mid-5th century, the time of the Council of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), where Mary was proclaimed "Theotokos" (Mother of God). Although regarded as apocryphal, these accounts continued to exert significant influence: St. Germain of Constantinople (+733) and especially St. John Damascene (circa 676–753) refer to them.

Some accounts have her dying in Ephesus (Anne-Catherine Emmerich), others in Jerusalem (Marie d'Ágreda), but the most widespread tradition places it in Jerusalem. The body is placed in a tomb from which Mary resurrects before being taken up to Heaven. Her funeral was followed by the Apostles who had gathered for the occasion from the lands where they had been dispersed.

In the writings of Maria Valtorta

Maria Valtorta's account respects, with notable differences, the three successive events of Tradition:

1. the Dormition,
2. the Assumption,
3. the Glorification.

The dates

Jesus specifies in a dictation that his Mother lived twenty-one years after the Ascension. Her dormition therefore took place in 51 AD. Mary was then 70 years old. This precision from Maria Valtorta is also found in the visions of Marie d'Ágreda. By correlating the details of Marie d'Ágreda and Maria Valtorta, Jean-François Lavère dates the dormition to the evening of Saturday, August 12. Only John is present and he does not want to Believe that death can touch Mary. "You are in error, John. My Son died! I too will die. I will not know illness, agony, the spasm of death. But as for dying, I will die."

The body, watched over by John, remains so until the morning of Tuesday, August 15, 21, when the Angels come to take Mary's body and carry it away. Awakened by the sound of the Angels, John wakes and runs to the terrace where he sees Mary's assumption and her glorified body coming back to life upon the meeting of Jesus descending in his glory.

The circumstances

These events take place at Gethsemane where Mary has been living with John since the Ascension. John, the only witness to her death, receives Mary's long spiritual testament then prays by reciting, at her request, the psalms and scripture passages concerning her. Meanwhile, "full of joy" she dies "contemplating God and feeling His embrace". John, overcome, remains prostrate but convinced that Mary's body will not experience corruption. He surrounds the body with flowers and olive branches and keeps vigil for a few days, persuaded of her resurrection.

John, collapsed from fatigue after three days without sleep, does not see angelic creatures removing Mary's body and taking it inertly to Heaven. A void miraculously opened in the roof of the little house at Gethsemane. He has time to see the wonder and attend Mary's resurrection and that of Jesus.

The place

No earthly traces remain of the place of the Assumption:

"The house from which I was taken up to Heaven was one of the countless gifts of Lazarus for Jesus and His Mother. The little house in Gethsemane, near the site of his Ascension. No need to look for its remains. In the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, it was devastated and its ruins scattered through the centuries."

There are also no tomb remains:

"Mary came to Me (Jesus), to God, to Heaven, without knowing the tomb with its horrible and gloomy decay. It is one of God's most striking miracles. Not unique, truly, if you remember Enoch and Elijah, who, being dear to the Lord, were taken from Earth without experiencing death and were carried elsewhere to a place known only to God and to the heavenly inhabitants of Heavens. They were just, but still nothing compared to my Mother, superior only to God in holiness. That is why there are no Relics of Mary's body and tomb, for Mary had no tomb and her body was taken up to Heaven."

"Was I dead?"

Mary, in a commentary, clarifies the circumstances of her death which connects her to the "passing from Earth to Heaven" as it had been designed for Man exempt from original sin and which she benefits from by her Immaculate Conception and her life free of all sin:

"Was I dead? Yes, if by death one means the separation from the body of the noble part of the spirit. No, if by death one means the separation from the body of the Soul that vivifies it, the corruption of the matter no longer vivified by the Soul, and above all the gloomy nature of the tomb and, most of all, the pain of death. "How I died, or rather how I passed from Earth to Heaven, first with the immortal part, then with the perishable one? How just it was for Her who did not know the stain of original sin!"

Notable points

• Mary's Assumption is not a unique event in the Bible. Jesus recalls it: it was the case with Enoch. The letter to the Hebrews mentions it. He is attributed an apocryphal book that Jude quotes in his letter. Elijah was also taken up to Heaven in a chariot of Fire under Elisha's eyes. Jesus also emphasizes: "They were just, but still nothing compared to my Mother, inferior in holiness only to God" (cf. above).

• Mary died of love, and she explains it:

  "We were speaking (with John) of Jesus, the Father, the Kingdom of Heaven. To speak of Charity and the Kingdom of Charity is to be inflamed with a living Fire, to consume the bonds of matter to free the spirit for its mystical flights. And if the Fire is held within the limits God sets to keep creatures on Earth for His service, one can live and burn, finding in its ardor not exhaustion but fulfillment of life. But when God removes the limits and lets the divine Fire freely penetrate and draw the spirit to Him without measure, then the spirit, in turn responding without measure to Love, separates from matter and flies where Love pushes and invites it. And this marks the end of exile and the return to the Homeland."

  This phenomenon is attested by the mystical experiences of Padre Pio and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. They separately recount, but in nearly identical terms, that the intensity of love was such that they almost died from it. St. Alphonsus Liguori also attests that Mary died of love.

• Jesus elaborates on the tripartite nature of Man as body, Soul and spirit, mentioned by St Paul and referenced in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In the body there is the Soul and in the Soul there is the Spirit. If the Soul separates from the body, it is death, but if the Spirit escapes from the Soul, it is Ecstasy.
• This assertion on the tripartite composition of Man (body, Soul, spirit) is developed by Maria Valtorta before the visions, already in her Autobiography (page 352). More specifically, the distinction between death and Ecstasy, developed here on May 1, 1946, is taken up later by Azarias (The Notebooks from 1945 to 1950, May 1, 1948, p. 475). These assertions belong to the theological deepening of Maria Valtorta which helps explain mysticism understood as the realm of life in God. They help understand, for example, that an immortal Soul can be dead or that the "Kingdom of God" is within us. This logically explains the visions and the revelations: "The more the creature loves God and serves Him with all its strength and possibilities, the more the highest part of its spirit increases its capacity to know, to contemplate, to penetrate eternal truths."

References in "The Gospel as it was revealed to me"

• The Dormition of Mary commented on by Jesus.
• The Apostle John is sure of Mary's Assumption.
• By her co-redemption, she already crossed death.
• The Dormition of Mary (the Blessed passing of Mary).
• Her Assumption and coronation.
• Mary's comments on her Blessed passage.

References in other works of Maria Valtorta

In the Notebooks

• Our [Jesus and Mary] spirits were always united in love […] until the Assumption which was the eternal union of the most pure Mother and the divine Son.
• Mary's death was another rapture. Prayer enveloped her in bands of love, excluding all human sensibility in her, and Love came to meet her for the second time to embrace the desired Bride even before time had come. [...] Mary, who fell asleep on God's Heart, now lives in Heaven with her flesh glorified.
• The Dormition of Mary meditated upon on the occasion of the glorious mysteries.
• When her last evening came, like an exhausted lily bending at night beneath the stars and closing its eye all of purity, Mary, on her bed, closed her eyes to the world to withdraw into a final contemplation of her God. Mary's guardian angel, leaning over her bed, waited, heart beating, for the surge of Ecstasy to separate forever this spirit from earth, while from the heavens came that gentle order of God: "Come, my all beautiful!"
• Vision of Mary's glorious Assumption: "I see Mary's glorious Assumption. I do not see where it begins. I might say that it is from a house because, as an outside observer, I perceive a sort of lime-covered cube as if it were a little house… […] Mary says: […] Of all who had loved me, only one attended my death. But this pause between earthly life and heavenly life that was my Dormition was not lonely. The Angels watched over my sleep like so many mothers watch over a cradle. And when I was born into heaven, they took me like mothers to carry my weakness to the aura that abolished humanity and its laws of gravity to make me bodily like my beloved glorified Son..." July 8, 1944
• "I [Maria Valtorta] was comforted by the contemplation of the Assumption of the Virgin that I have already described to you. […] The first time I had this vision, I was so absorbed by my contemplation of the Angels on the terrace that I did not carefully observe the details…" August 15, 1944
• "An extraordinary Holy Year was celebrated on the occasion of the nineteenth centenary of my Passion [1933]. Infinite Wisdom would like the glorious Assumption of my Mother into heaven also to be celebrated on this anniversary and to give this celebration a special character for the Next Holy Year [it was in the Holy Year 1950 that the Dogma of the Assumption was promulgated]." October 23, 1947
• "Man believes imperfectly in the resurrection of the flesh and in the participation of the resurrected flesh in the joy of the happy Soul; he is unable to Believe this truth — or rather, he Doubts it — and is still not persuaded by the resurrection of Jesus Christ because he says: "He was God, therefore...". But faced with the truth established by Mary's Assumption into heaven with body and Soul, he can no longer doubt. His intellect recognizes in it a means that strongly compels him to Believe in the resurrection of the flesh and its participation in the eternal joy of the Soul…" Notes on the Apocalypse, September to November 1950.

References in fundamental Christian texts

In the Bible

• Ascension of Enoch.-
• Ascension of Elijah.-

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church

"The Assumption of the Virgin Mary is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians."       

The Dogma of the Assumption was promulgated by Pope Pius XII in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus (EN) of November 1, 1950.           

"The Virgin Immaculate, preserved from every stain of original sin, at the end of her earthly life, was taken up body and Soul into glory in Heaven, and was exalted by the Lord as Queen of the universe."

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