Bl.
Isidore Bakanja
MARTYR
Feast: August 15
 Information:
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The Assumption is the oldest feast day of Our
Lady, but we don't know how it first came to be celebrated.
Its origin is lost in those days when Jerusalem
was restored as a sacred city, at the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine
(c. 285-337). By then it had been a pagan city for two centuries, ever since
Emperor Hadrian (76-138) had leveled it around the year 135 and rebuilt it as
in honor of Jupiter.
For 200 years, every memory of Jesus was
obliterated from the city, and the sites made holy by His life, death and
Resurrection became pagan temples.
After the building of the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre in 336, the sacred sites began to be restored and memories of the
life of Our Lord began to be celebrated by the people of Jerusalem. One of
the memories about his mother centered around the "Tomb of Mary,"
close to Mount Zion, where the early Christian community had lived.
On the hill itself was the "Place of
Dormition," the spot of Mary's "falling asleep," where she had
died. The "Tomb of Mary" was where she was buried.
At this time, the "Memory of Mary" was
being celebrated. Later it was to become our feast of the Assumption.
For a time, the "Memory of Mary" was
marked only in Palestine, but then it was extended by the emperor to all the
churches of the East. In the seventh century, it began to be celebrated in
Rome under the title of the "Falling Asleep" ("Dormitio")
of the Mother of God.
Soon the name was changed to the "Assumption
of Mary," since there was more to the feast than her dying. It also
proclaimed that she had been taken up, body and soul, into heaven.
That belief was ancient, dating back to the
apostles themselves. What was clear from the beginning was that there were no
relics of Mary to be venerated, and that an empty tomb stood on the edge of
Jerusalem near the site of her death. That location also soon became a place
of pilgrimage. (Today, the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition of Mary stands
on the spot.)
At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when bishops
from throughout the Mediterranean world gathered in Constantinople, Emperor
Marcian asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to bring the relics of Mary to Constantinople
to be enshrined in the capitol. The patriarch explained to the emperor that
there were no relics of Mary in Jerusalem, that "Mary had died in the
presence of the apostles; but her tomb, when opened later . . . was found
empty and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into
heaven."
In the eighth century, St. John Damascene was
known for giving sermons at the holy places in Jerusalem. At the Tomb of
Mary, he expressed the belief of the Church on the meaning of the feast:
"Although the body was duly buried, it did not remain in the state of
death, neither was it dissolved by decay. . . . You were transferred to your
heavenly home, O Lady, Queen and Mother of God in truth."
All the feast days of Mary mark the great
mysteries of her life and her part in the work of redemption. The central
mystery of her life and person is her divine motherhood, celebrated both at
Christmas and a week later (Jan. 1) on the feast of the Solemnity of Mary,
Mother of God. The Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8) marks the preparation for
that motherhood, so that she had the fullness of grace from the first moment
of her existence, completely untouched by sin. Her whole being throbbed with
divine life from the very beginning, readying her for the exalted role of mother
of the Savior.
The Assumption completes God's work in her since
it was not fitting that the flesh that had given life to God himself should
ever undergo corruption. The Assumption is God's crowning of His work as Mary
ends her earthly life and enters eternity. The feast turns our eyes in that
direction, where we will follow when our earthly life is over.
The feast days of the Church are not just the
commemoration of historical events; they do not look only to the past. They
look to the present and to the future and give us an insight into our own
relationship with God. The Assumption looks to eternity and gives us hope
that we, too, will follow Our Lady when our life is ended.
The prayer for the feast reads:
"All-powerful and ever-living God: You raised the sinless Virgin Mary,
mother of your Son, body and soul, to the glory of heaven. May we see heaven
as our final goal and come to share her glory."
In 1950, in the Apostolic Constitution , Pope
Pius XII proclaimed the Assumption of Mary a dogma of the Catholic Church in
these words: "The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having
completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into
heaven."
With that, an ancient belief became Catholic
doctrine and the Assumption was declared a truth revealed by God.
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Read more: http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/A/assumptionoftheblessedvirginmary.asp#ixzz1V62lQAi1
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