The Assumption–And Devotion to Mary in America

THE ASSUMPTION-:-AND DEVOTION TO MARY IN AMERICA MEMORABLE in the history of the Church will ever remain the date of November 1, 1950, for on that day the Reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, proclaimed from St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican the dogmatic definition of the bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven. Nature could not have prepared a more beautiful day, azure skies serene, the sun refulgent, the waning moon clearly limned above the cupola of Michelangelo-calling spontaneously to mind the words of Sacred Scripture: "A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun:. and the moon was under her feet" (Apoc. 12: I). The standard raised on high carried Titian's representation of the theme of this glorious day: Mary's Assumption into heaven. The Church was there--Ecclesia docens and Ecclesia discens. On a magnificant throne at the entrance of the Basilica sat the Sovereign Pontiff, surrounded by an assembly of almost forty Cardinals and over six-hundred-fifty Archbishops and Bishops from every corner of the globe. An unprecedented host· of people, devout, almost ecstatic, filled to overflowing the piazza of St. Peter, the piazza of Pius XII, the Via della Conciliazione, and adjacent streets, windows, balconies, and terraces. The United States too was represented by a multitude of laity, a goodly number of Prelates some of whom pertain to the Roman Curia, many priests, and fifteen members of the ecclesiastical Hierarchy.1 1 Those present included: His Eminence, Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York; Archbishops Floersh of Louisville, Byrne of Santa Fe, Hurley of St. Augustine, Binz Coadjutor of Dubuque, O'Hara of Savannah-Atlanta, Muench of Fargo; and Bishops Albers of Lansing, O'Hara of Kansas City in Missouri, Leech of Harrisburg, Cotton of Owensboro, Senyshyn Auxiliary for the Ukranians of the Byzantine rite, THE ASSUMPTION-AND DEVOTION TO MARY 28 THE DEFINITION The most solemn act of the supreme magisterium of ·the Church, a dogmatic definition, was about to take place. In the celestial crown of Mary, like three resplendent stars, shine her Divine Maternity, her Immaculate Conception, and her Assumption into heaven. That Mary is the @eoToKos or Mother of God was defiri.ed by the Council of Ephesus (481), the third Ecumenical Council; that she was conceived immaculate was defined by Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus (Dec. 8, 1854); and now the Reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, in his office as supreme Teacher and Shepherd of the universal· Church, was about to define ex cathedra-that is, to declare in an infallible and irrevocable way-that the fact of the bodily. Assumption of Mary into heaven is a truth contained in the deposit of faith, a revealed dogma. The Holy Father invited those present to join him in prayer, and thereby, as it were, accorded the faithful an active part in this great event. On May 1, 1946 he had likewise addressed himself to the entire Church in his Letter Deiparae Virginia Mariae, appealing to the Bishops: "Ut Nobis significare velitis qua devotione, pro sua quisque fide ac pietate, clerus populusque moderamini vestro commissus Beatissimae Virginis Mariae Assumptionem prosequatur. Praesertim autem nosse quam maxime cupimus an vos, Venerabiles Fratres, pro eximia vestra sapientia et prudentia censeatis Assumptionem corpoream Beatissimae Virginis tamquam dogma fidei proponi ac definiri posse, et an id cum clero et populo vestro exoptetis." The consent could not be other tha'n universal, and so it was. Firm and ·constant testimony to this truth is found in the ordinary magisterium of the Church; in the belief of pastors and faithful throughout the centuries in both Orient and Occident; in the ancient Liturgies and especially in feasts instituted under such varied titles as Mary's Dormitio, Pausatio, Transitus, Assumptio, with vigils and octaves; in many homilies Ready of Columbus, McNulty Auxiliary of Newark, and lvancho Exarch for the Podocarpathian Ruthenians of the Byzantine rite. 24 A. G. CICOGNANI and writings of the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church; in countless monuments such as churches and .shrines; in a word, so harmonious and uninterrupted is the tapestry of testimony that this truth could not but be a true echo of divine-apostolic tradition...