Every Aug. 15, the church universal celebrates that moment in
history when “the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having
completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into
heavenly glory” (Pope Pius XII). Mary’s Assumption (known as the Dormition, or
falling-asleep, in the Eastern churches) is celebrated not only because it
commemorates the conclusion of her earthly life, but also because her Assumption
is what constitutes “our life, our sweetness, and our hope.” In Mary, “we
contemplate what the church already is … and what she will be in the homeland
at the end of her journey” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 972). Mary is the
eschatological icon of the church, the glorified image of what we hope to
become after wandering in this vale of tears. She is the first to be divinized,
glorified in body and soul. Her own falling asleep in the Lord “is a singular
participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection
of other Christians” (Catechism, 966).
The New Testament doesn’t record the end of Mary’s life, nor do
we have any discussion of her last days, until the late 4th century when
Epiphanius describes the opinions of his day concerning her fate, ultimately
concluding, “No one knows her end.” Nevertheless, the church doesn’t hesitate
to find this dogma of our faith hidden in the Hebrew Scriptures, waiting to be
revealed (especially through the liturgy) by an allegorical and typological
reading. To understand typology is to read the Scriptures with the “mind of
Christ” (1 Cor 2:16); it is to read them with Christ as the two disciples did
on the road to Emmaus when Jesus, “interpreted to them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning himself” (Lk 24:27). Typology “discerns in God’s works of
the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time
in the person of his incarnate Son” (Catechism, 128).
Marian doctrine revealed through typology originates first in
discerning Christ as New Adam (1 Cor 15:45-47). “What the Catholic faith
believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it
teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ” (Catechism, 487).
Marian doctrine, like a tender mother, guards and protects Christological
doctrine. If we call her Mother of God, her Son truly is God. Thus, Mary
becomes the New Eve, mother of the king, seat of wisdom, mystical rose, tower
of David, morning star, gate of heaven, and daughter of Zion.
The dogma of the Assumption is unveiled typologically through a
meditation on Mary as the ark of the covenant, which contains the new manna and
eternal high priest, the Incarnate Word. No one can read, for example, Mary’s
visit to Elizabeth in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 1:39-56) without seeing the fulfillment
of David bringing the ark to Jerusalem (2 Sam 6). As Mary “arose and went with
haste into the hill county” of Judea, so too a thousand years earlier did
David, who, upon seeing the Ark, cried out, “How can the ark of the Lord come
to me?” Seeing Mary, Elizabeth asked how “the mother of my Lord should come to
me?” As David had danced before the ark, John leapt within his mother’s womb.
As the ark stayed in the house of Obed-edom three months, Mary remained three
months in the house of Zechariah. Just as Elizabeth “filled with the Holy
Spirit … exclaimed with a loud cry,” so too did the people exult before the ark
of the Lord (1 Chron 15:28; 16:4-5; 2 Chron 5:13).
In the Apocalypse, John saw the ark of the covenant but beheld “a
woman clothed with the sun” (Rev 11:19-12:1). Her “child was caught up to God
and to his throne” and she fled to “where she has a place prepared by God” (Rev
12:5-6). And at the Last Supper Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you”
(Jn 14:2). As the Psalmist wrote, “Arise, O Lord, and go to thy resting place,
thou and the ark of thy might” (Ps 132:8). The true ark, the immaculate Mother
of God, has been taken up to a place prepared for her, a place prepared for us,
to reign with her Son. She is our confident hope that we too will be glorified
in body and soul to reign with him forever.
Wallace is an adjunct professor at Christendom Graduate School of
Theology in Alexandria.