For Catholic Christians, the belief in the Assumption of Mary flows from our belief in and understanding of Mary's Immaculate Conception. We believe that if Mary was preserved from sin by the free gift of God, she would not be bound to experience the consequences of sin and death in the same way that we do. We believe that because of the obedience and fidelity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the end of her earthly life, she was assumed both body and soul into heavenly glory.
Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that Mary died a natural death, that her soul was received by Christ upon death, and that her body was resurrected on the third day after her death and that she was taken up into heaven bodily in anticipation of the general resurrection. Her tomb was found empty on the third day. (One can visit the Orthodox tomb of the Virgin Mary in Jerusalem. It is located near the Church of All Nations and the Garden of Gethsemane.)
In presenting the "great sign" of the "woman clothed with the sun," the first reading from the Book of Revelation (11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10) says that she "was with child and ... cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery" (12:2). Just as the risen Christ who has ascended into heaven forever bears the wounds of his redemptive death within his glorious body, so his Mother brings to eternity "the pangs" and "anguish for delivery" (12:2). We could say that Mary, as the new Eve, continues from generation to generation to give birth to the new man, "created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24). This is the Church's eschatological image, which is present and active in the Virgin Mary.
In Mary's triumph, the Church contemplates her whom the Father chose as the true Mother of his Only-begotten Son, closely associating her with the saving plan of Redemption.
Taken up into heaven, Mary shows us the way to God, the way to heaven, the way to life. She shows it to her children baptized in Christ and to all people of good will. She opens this way especially to the little ones and to the poor, those who are open to divine mercy. The Queen of the world reveals to individuals and to nations the power of the love of God whose plan upsets that of the proud, pulls down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the humble, fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich empty away (Luke 1:51-53).
The Church celebrates Mary's final journey into the fullness of God's Kingdom with the dogma of the Assumption promulgated by Pius XII in 1950. As with her beginnings, so too, with the end of her life, God fulfilled in her all of the promises that he has given to us. We, too, shall be raised up into heaven as she was. In Mary we have an image of humanity and divinity at home. God is indeed comfortable in our presence and we in God's. Through her Assumption, Mary was chosen to have a special place of honor in the Godhead.
