Kingdom Revelator – Issue 39
Welcome to the latest issue of Kingdom Revelator. We hope and pray that it will guide you in your spiritual life and draw you closer to the Lord. This month we are celebrating the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15th. This is a great celebration in the Catholic Church so I thought that I would find out more about it. The Assumption of Our Lady is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible but is, according to the Catholic Church, when Mary, the Holy Mother of God, “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory”. Pope Pius XII declared this article of faith in 1950 but it has been a part of the Tradition of the Church from the very earliest times. The word Assumption comes from the Latin word ‘assumptio’ which means ‘taking’ and signifies that at the end of her life Jesus took His Mother, body and soul, to be with Him in Heaven. He was able to do this because she was the ‘Immaculate Conception’ born free from original sin. Documents from the early Church always maintained that something extraordinary happened to Our Lady at the moment of her departure from this life and this was accepted by the Church for many centuries. This explains why there is no burial place where the first followers of Christ could pay their respects to His Mother, as they would no doubt have done if it were possible, or even a legend of a tomb. Because of the Assumption, instead of having one place to venerate our Holy Mother, we have Marian shrines around the world dedicated to her. God has allowed Our Blessed Lady to appear in places like Lourdes, Fatima and Guadalupe so that she can speak His words to her beloved children. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 974) it says that Our Lady’s Assumption is a foretaste of what will happen to all believers when Christ comes again, then all the Saints will be united with the Most Holy Trinity in the glory of Heaven. Until that time Mother Mary is a sign of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim people of God. That is why we remember and celebrate this wonderful Feast.