High Mass will be celebrated in honour of the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven, at 9:00 am Saturday 15 August.

From the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus of Pope Pius XII, defining the dogma of the Assumption of Our Lady:

‘When this liturgical feast was being celebrated ever more widely and with ever increasing devotion and piety, the bishops of the Church and its preachers in continually greater numbers considered it their duty openly and clearly to explain the mystery that the feast commemorates, and to explain  how  it  is  intimately  connected with the other revealed truths.

‘Among the scholastic theologians there have not been lacking those who, wishing to inquire more profoundly into divinely revealed truths and desirous of showing the harmony that exists between what is termed the theological demonstration and the Catholic faith have always considered  it  worthy  of  note that this privilege of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption is in wonderful accord with those divine truths given us in Holy Scripture.

….

‘Thus, to mention only a few of the texts rather frequently cited in this fashion, some have employed the words of the psalmist: “Arise, O Lord, into Thy resting place: Thou and the ark, which Thou hast sanctified” (Ps. 138:8); and have looked upon the Ark of the Covenant, built of incorruptible wood and placed in the Lord’s temple, as a type of the most pure body of the Virgin Mary, preserved and exempt from all the corruption of the tomb and raised up to such glory in heaven. Treating of this subject, they also describe her as the Queen entering triumphantly into the royal halls of heaven and sitting at the right hand of the divine Redeemer. Likewise they mention the Spouse of the Canticles “that goes up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense to be crowned” (Song 3:6). These are proposed as depicting that heavenly Queen and heavenly Spouse who has been lifted up to the courts of heaven with the divine Bridegroom.

‘Moreover, the scholastic Doctors have recognized the Assumption of the Virgin Mother of God as something signified, not only in various figures of the Old Testament, but also in that woman clothed with the sun whom John the Apostle contemplated on the Island of Patmos (Apoc. 11:19-12:6). Similarly, they have given special attention to these words of the New Testament: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women’ (Lk. 1:28), since they saw, in the mystery of the Assumption, the fulfillment of that most perfect grace granted to the Blessed Virgin and the special blessing that countered the curse of Eve.

….

‘We must remember especially that, since the second century, the Virgin Mary has been designated by the holy Fathers as the new Eve, who, although subject to the new Adam, is most intimately associated with him in that struggle against the infernal foe which, as foretold in the protoevangelium (Gen. 3:15), would finally result in that most complete victory over the sin and death….’

[The image above shows a Coptic icon of the Assumption of Our Lady, reminding us of the antiquity and universality of this belief of Christians. This icon is in the church of Saint Menas in Cairo.]