{"id":6513,"date":"2006-08-15T11:20:25","date_gmt":"2006-08-15T11:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/on-the-assumption.html"},"modified":"2006-08-15T11:20:25","modified_gmt":"2006-08-15T11:20:25","slug":"on-the-assumption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/on-the-assumption.html","title":{"rendered":"On the Assumption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Aquilina points us <\/a> to a helpful essay by David Scott on the Assumption, specifically how a re-engagement with early Christian history puts more recent anti-Assumption polemics in persepective.<\/a><\/p>\n

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On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared a new dogma of the Catholic Church\u2014a truth revealed by God to be believed by the faithful: that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the end of her time on earth, was assumed, or taken up, into heaven. <\/p>\n

But it was Protestants, not Catholics, who set the tone for the world\u2019s reaction. And Protestant reaction was just this side of apocalyptic. <\/p>\n

Rev. Marc Boegner, president of the World Council of Churches, repeatedly called the new dogma a \u201cscandal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The don of cold\u2013war American Protestantism, Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr, called it a species of idolatry.<\/p>\n

The dogma, he declared, \u201cincorporates a legend of the Middle Ages into the official teachings of the Church, thereby placing the final capstone on the Mariolatry of the Roman Church.\u201d <\/p>\n

Scholars, too, apparently struggled to remain charitable\u2014without much success. <\/p>\n

Rev. R.L.P Milburn, delivering the 1952 Bampton Lectures at Oxford\u2014then the most distinguished lectureship in Protestant theology\u2014said the Pope had made \u201cfantasy, however pious, to masquerade as fact.\u201d <\/p>\n

His verdict: \u201cThe grave difficulty concerning the doctrine. . .is that. . .something has been solemnly stated as assured historical fact that has no other strictly historical basis even pretended than a Coptic romance.\u201d <\/p>\n

To this day, our understanding of the Assumption\u2019s origins languishes in the long shadow of these early polemics, which so often betrayed a deep\u2013seated animus against Catholicism.<\/p>\n

From the Encyclopedia Britannica<\/em> to the daily newspaper\u2014the received wisdom is that the Assumption belief has no basis in the Bible, but instead grew out of the colorful imaginations of unlettered medieval Catholics with an overzealous devotion to the Virgin. <\/p>\n

In fact, Stephen Shoemaker, who teaches religion at the University of Oregon, says the whole field of early Christian studies suffers the lingering effects of inherited \u201canti\u2013Catholic prejudice\u201d\u2014particularly when it comes to studying Mary. <\/p>\n

In an important scholarly book, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary\u2019s Dormition and Assumption <\/a><\/em>(Oxford, 2003), he writes: \u201cThere is a palpable tendency in much scholarship to minimize the strong devotion to Mary evident in the ancient Church [and to] \u2018trivialize any early mention of [Mary] so as to reduce its import for mariology.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(By the way, Shoemaker has also addressed the identity of "Mary" in various non-canonical writings, questioning the contemporary assumption (sorry) that this is always Mary of Magdala. The abstract for "Re-thinking the "Gnostic Mary:" Mary of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala in Early Christian Tradition"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Numerous early Christian apocrypha, including several so-called "gnostic" texts, include a character known as "Mary," whose identity is usually other-wise unspecified. Generally, this "Mary" appears as an associate or, some-times, as a rival, of the apostles, who is filled with knowledge of the "gnostic" mysteries. Although scholars have persistently identified this Mary with Mary the Magdalene, rather than Mary of Nazareth, this interpretive dogma is based on evidence that it is at best inconclusive. This article reexamines the relevant apocrypha, as well as incorporating much previously overlooked evidence to argue that Mary of Nazareth is an equally important contributor to the "gnostic Mary’s" identity. The gnostic Mary, it turns out, is a composite figure, who draws on the identities of both the Magdalene and the Virgin, rather than being the representation of a single historical individual. This new perspective will present both consequences and opportunities for feminist interpretations of early Christianity and the veneration of Mary of Nazareth.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Pope at the Angelus today:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The feast of the Assumption of Mary, a \u201ccertain sign of our hope\u201d, is an opportunity to entrust to the \u201cQueen of Heaven\u201d the \u201canxieties of mankind for all places in the world rent by violence\u201d. In his reflection before the Angelus, Benedict XVI recalled the Holy Land, Iraq and Sri Lanka. But he mentioned especially Lebanon and Israel, where masses were being celebrated at the same time at the Shrine of Harissa on Mount Lebanon and at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. The pope said: \u201cWe unite with our brothers and sisters who at this very moment are gathered in the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa for a Eucharistic celebration presided over by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who went to Lebanon as my special envoy to take comfort and concrete solidarity to all victims of the conflict and to pray for the great intention of peace. We are in communion also with the pastors and faithful of the Church in the Holy Land, who gathered together in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, around the pontifical representative in Israel and Palestine, Archbishop Antonio Franco, to pray for the same intentions.\u201d And referring to all the ethnic and religious tensions and conflict prevailing in such situations, he said: \u201cMay Mary obtain for all sentiments of understanding, a will to agree and a desire for harmony!\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, said the pope, the feast of the Assumption is the feast in which Christians discern a \u201ccertain sign\u201d of hope. <\/p>\n

\u201cMary encourages us not to lose faith in the face of the difficulties and inevitable problems of daily life,\u201d continued Benedict XVI. \u201cShe assures us of her help and reminds us that the essential thing is to seek and to think \u2018of things that are above, not of things that are on earth\u2019 (cfr Col 3:2).  Taken up with daily worries, we run the risk of maintaining that it is here, in this world where we are only passing through, that the ultimate scope of human existence lies. However Paradise is the true goal of our earthly pilgrimage. How different our days would be if they were animated by this perspective! This is how it was for the saints. Their existence testifies how, when one lives with one\u2019s heart constantly turned towards heaven, earthly realities are experienced according to their proper value because they are illuminated by the eternal truth of divine love.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Also via Mike, foreshadows of the Assumption in Jewish literature.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}