The Assumption of Mary and the dignity of the human body

Mary’s Assumption reveals the nobility and dignity of the human body, which is God’s creation.

Mary is depicted in a stained-glass window at St. Mary Church in Manhasset, N.Y. in this file photo. (OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz) (Courtesy photo of Gregory A. Shemitz)

Carl Jung, a native of Switzerland, was one of the most celebrated thinkers of the last century. The son of a Lutheran minister, Jung achieved great fame as a psychologist and the author of many non-fiction books, including his best-known work, “Modern Man in Search of a Soul.” For virtually all his entire life, Jung was an unbelieving agnostic and certainly was no admirer of the Roman Catholic Church.

But sometime in 1950, Jung surprised the secular world by endorsing Pope Pius XII’s teaching letter on Mary’s Assumption into Heaven. He took the view that the definition did more than anything else to uphold the dignity of womanhood.

Pius taught that the Mother of Jesus was taken up into heavenly glory with her body intact.

Ironically, the late pontiff, Pope John Paul II agrees with Doctor Jung’s assessment. He offers a profound meditation on the meaning of the Assumption of Mary for our secular age.

He writes, “In the face of the profanation and debasement to which modern society subjects the human body, the mystery of the Assumption proclaims the supernatural destiny and dignity of every human body called by the Lord to become an instrument of holiness and to share in his glory.”

It was never the plan of God that human souls should exist in a disembodied state, having no kinship whatsoever with a body. In one sense it is an unnatural condition for a human body to be permanently divorced from a human soul.

We are not angels, nor do we become angels after our earthly pilgrimage ends.

In the Apostles’ Creed, we profess as a community of faith words about our life after death. We pray the words, “I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”

In the Assumption, the power of Christ’s Resurrection was realized in his Mother, Mary, and he has taken her, body and soul, into eternity.

Mary’s Assumption reveals the nobility and dignity of the human body, which is God’s creation. The decision of so many Catholics today to have their loved ones cremated may be a sign that they reject or ignore the teaching on the sacredness of the body and have faith only in the immortality of the soul.

Would it not have been odd if the Christ, the Son of Mary, had not, of his own power, carried that human nature of his Mother, body and soul, into heavenly glory?

Let’s pause to consider the devaluation of the human body in our time:

In Ukraine and in the Gaza Strip, we have evidence of mass killings, in which human corpses are littered in the city streets.

Children in great numbers are exploited by pornographers and sex traffickers.

Innocent women, children and the elderly needlessly die in drone attacks.

The bodies of the unborn are dismembered in the wombs of their mothers

The vulnerable in our midst, particularly the disabled, the elderly, and the terminally ill are disposed of by trained medical personnel in what is called physician-assisted suicide.

Modern technology makes it possible to disguise the natural effects of old age in film and glossy magazines. It is as if age somehow diminishes the dignity and beauty of life with the passage of time.

It must be noted that many of the Catholic churches around the world, including our own Diocese of Albany, are named in honor of Mary’s Assumption.

Ditto the great works of art depicting Mary’s entrance into divine glory.

In the light of the profound Mystery of Mary’s Assumption what does death signify for the faithful Christian? It means that Christ comes and calls. Our life is shattered, surely, but through this the door opens, and on the other side stands Christ and his Holy Mother.

Father John Yanas is pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Troy.