The Dormition of Our Lady

Our Lady looked with longing toward Our Lord's death and resurrection, desiring to join Him in His ultimate mission. The Dormition of the Theotokos verifies the resurrection. To understand Our Lady's longing for Our Lord, she had been living in the home of St. John the Apostle since the crucifixion. St. Joseph had reposed some time before the crucifixion. It is held that he probably reposed some time before the baptism of Our Lord though it is unknown for certain. As a widow, the Theotokos was thus entrusted to St. John the Apostle by Our Lord for she had no other legal next of kin. It is further estimated that the Dormition occurred when Our Lady was around the age of 70, maybe even older. She had been around the age of 14 when she was entrusted to Joseph. So the Dormition of Mary occurred some time before the Neronian persecution of the Christians.

With longing for the Lord, her only son, Our Lady desired to join Him in His death. She had been preparing for this moment for years. She had been without her only son for around thirty years and had been constantly looking toward this moment. This moment, for Our Lady, was entirely voluntary. The Christian believer fears not death and voluntarily yields his soul up to God knowing that he is to enter into the resurrection. The heathen has a constant state of fear of the final judgment about him and fears death for death leads to his damnation. For the Christian, death can no longer contain our souls. Our Lady was not subject to bodily death having been filled with the grace of God, suffering no corruption, she retained the full height of her beauty.

She went up to Mount Zion with the Apostles and they gathered together in prayer one last time. Then she yielded up her spirit to Our Lord, her son. According to the most ancient text, the angels came down from Heaven on the Lord's day and gathered her soul to Heaven into the arms of Our Lord. Thus, being the one who held the Lord, she now herself finds her soul held by the Lord's hands. It would be a few days later that her body would be resurrected but this would be unwitnessed by the Apostles. There was one Apostle who had been late in arriving.

Shortly after her repose, the Apostle Thomas finally made his venture from India to where Our Lady rested. Wishing to pay his final respects to Our Blessed Mother, he asked the other Apostles to roll away the stone of the tomb. They did this and to their discovery, they found the casket where they had laid Our Lady's holy body in, was filled with flowers of all sorts. But Our Lady's body was gone. She had been resurrected from the dead. In the East, we celebrate her death for in the death of her body, the resurrection would be verified. In the West, the assumption of her body is celebrated. The East constantly looks toward the resurrection and the West constantly looks toward the crucifixion. Here, our roles are flipped. For now, the East looks to the crucifixion as part of the life-giving mission of Our Lord that we enter into and the West looks to the resurrection.