According to the Code of Canon Law, there are 10 holy days of obligation in the universal Church, though very few countries or dioceses actually require the faithful to observe all 10. Certain areas have holy days other than those on the Canon Law list.
In most of the U.S. there are only five (in addition to every Sunday, of course): Mary the Mother of God, the Assumption, All Saints, the Immaculate Conception, and Christmas. Catholics in England and Wales are off the hook for Mary the Mother of God and the Immaculate Conception, but expected at Mass for Epiphany, the Ascension, and the Solemnity and Saints Peter and Paul.
For most of the English-speaking world, though, this Wednesday is a holy day of obligation: the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when we celebrate the fact that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life.
At first glance, it seems an odd celebration to have made the cut. We aren’t obliged to attend Mass on Mary’s birthday, which might seem just as important as the day she was assumed, or on such powerful solemnities as the Sacred Heart or the Nativity of John the Baptist. So why get ourselves to church just to remember that 2,000 years ago Jesus took his mom to heaven?
As with every mystery regarding the Blessed Mother, it’s not ultimately about her. When we celebrate the Immaculate Conception, it’s primarily because the Virgin Mary’s conception was the beginning of our salvation, the first step in the series of events that would defeat sin and death and open the kingdom of heaven. But all that culminated at Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, his return to the Father. After that, wasn’t the story over?
The story of our salvation being won was over, yes. It was all accomplished during the Paschal Mystery, during the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus. But Mary’s Assumption is a sign that teaches us who we are and what our destiny is now that Christ has won the victory. The Assumption isn’t just evidence of God putting everything away when he’s done with it, it’s a promise of what is to come for each one of us.
You and I will not be assumed bodily into heaven when we die; death (the separation of body and soul) is a consequence of the sin handed down from our first parents, and while death will not have the last word for those who cling to Christ, we must pass through it to the other side. And yet we, like Mary, will one day know what it is to worship eternally before the heavenly throne, bowing in our flesh before the crucified and risen flesh of the Son.
The fact that Jesus and Mary sit enthroned in the flesh proclaims to the world that our bodies are not our enemies, that pleasure is not evil. On the Solemnity of the Assumption, we celebrate the fact that a human body—a woman’s body—has been exalted as no other creature has. Our bodies are sacred, made in the image and likeness of God. Our wombs are sacred, our wrinkles are sacred.
As important as these theological truths proclaimed by the Assumption are, perhaps nothing matters quite as profoundly as the image that the doctrine presents us with: Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, running to embrace his mother, laughing for joy as he spins her around, taking half a step back to look into her eyes and wipe the tears from her face.
That’s what we’re looking forward to. That’s why we bother with feasts and fasts and Holy Days of Obligation: so that one day, we’ll find him running to us just as he ran to her. Mary goes first to show us that it’s all worth it, all this striving for holiness in the midst of a world (and a Church) so full of broken, sinful people. We pray and study and serve so that he might make our hearts more like his, so that one day we might be as she is, embraced by the Son in the glory of a body and soul made new. Now that’s something worth celebrating.
Full story at Aleteia.
Thanks for the refreshing break from the heresy, error, false doctrine, scandals that have plagued our church lately. It is good to hear what we are here for, that God loves us, forgives us, and grants us everlasting life through Jesus with Mary’s Assumption as a first fruit for humanity after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Indeed, for us it is all worth it because of Jesus. Do you hear that bishops and priests? Talk to us about Jesus and his salvation, or resign and run for political office to promote any other agenda! I love you, mother Mary. I adore you, Jesus.
The only problem, Father, is that today’s Church short circuit’s the testing necessary (that is going to Mass during the week) to understand our responsibility as the People of God. Over time, our faithfulness lights the true fire of our faith so that we begin to yearn to become holy. There should be more and more holy days that obligate us to attend Mass and worship God. We need to observe what Christ did, and why, and how that is relevant to us each day.
And, Mary is our Mother, too, so her wonderful gift from Jesus becomes extended to us, as well.
I remember reading an Archdiocese of Los Angeles blurb some years back about a Holy Day of Obligation falling on a Monday that the “faithful” were dispensed from, due to the “hardship” of attending Holy Mass on successive days.
That mindset always made me think of St. Juan Diego who used to walk seven miles EACH WAY to attend Mass every morning, yet our modern mentality sees consecutive days as a “hardship”?
Good grief! At least we have access to automobiles that can mitigate the difficulty, unlike this good Saint.
But then we don’t actually live in an Age of Faith; rather, just an Age of Convenience.
Mr. McDermott,
The problem is that many of our bishops are soft and think that the laity are soft as well. They fail to realize that you don’t get strong by doing little and remaining weak.
The way to become spiritually strong is to exercise your spiritual muscles. This means that bishops need to explain and then motivate.
If you look at the early Church, she was always the strongest after a viscous persecution because the remaining Christians were hardened and pure.
The task for bishops, priests, and laity today is to become hardened and strong without persecution.
The fact that the US Bishops have made the Solemnity of the Assumpion only an the occasional holy day of obligation has greatly diminished the importance of the mystery. In fact most ordinary Catholics would be surprised to find that even obligatory attendance applies in certain years.