The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when she was taken body and soul to heaven, might seem to have affinities to the Resurrection and Ascension. Let’s examine them.

First of all, the Assumption is not a resurrection. In proclaiming the dogma of the Assumption, Pope Pius XII took pains to write that “at the end of her earthly life” Our Lady was taken body and soul to heaven. In Eastern Christianity, today’s Solemnity is called the “Dormition,” Mary’s “falling asleep.” Did Mary die? If she did, her death was not like the death we experience. Death as we know it has a “sting” (I Cor 15:55-56) because of sin. It is a tearing apart of the person, body and soul, because sin itself is a disintegration of unity: with God, others, ourselves, and creation (see Gen 2). But Mary, “conceived without sin” and free of sin throughout her life, is free of death as we know it.

Theologians have speculated: If Adam had not sinned, would he have died? Some have said no. Others have said that man’s life in this world may have come to an end, by which he would transition to eternal life. We need not resolve this question, but we can affirm that Mary, free of sin, experienced the “end of her earthly life” differently than we do. This speculation reminds us, however, that “God did not create death” (Wis 1:13) and, therefore, once again Mary shows us something of what man should have been but for the warping effect of sin and its consequences.

So, the “end of her earthly life” was qualitatively different from that of every other human person.

Now, obviously, we affirm that Jesus truly died. How can it be that Mary’s experience of death was different from that of her Son, the Son of God Simple. “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). All of us learned — most probably at our mother’s knee — that “Jesus died for our sins.” When we say Jesus “bore our sins” to the cross, that is not hyperbole. While Jesus was sinless, He willingly took upon Himself our sins and their consequences. One of those consequences is death. So Jesus’s death is no illusion, as some of the heretics in the ancient Church contended.

While the Assumption is not a “resurrection,” it does have an unbreakable link to the Resurrection. Just as Mary’s Immaculate Conception was made possible by the prevenient grace of God in Christ, so her Assumption is also connected to her Son.

St. Paul speaks of Christ’s Resurrection as the “first fruits” (I Cor 15:23). In the Old Testament, the very first fruits of the harvest were presented in the Temple as an offering to God. The “first fruits” were taken to represent the entirety of the harvest. Jesus’ Resurrection is not an isolated event. It ought not to be thought of as a “personal reward” to Jesus for Good Friday. The Resurrection of Christ’s Body is essential to our salvation, as I Corinthians 15 makes clear in extenso. Unless Jesus conquers the consequence of sin — death — in His body, He is no savior, just a dead Jew. But if He did — as He did — then the Resurrection is not just something relevant to Jesus. It is the start of a process that reaches its culmination in the resurrection of the body on the Last Day. The Resurrection sets the course of history in motion: God will have the final word over evil, sin, and death. The Resurrection is the “first fruits” of the total harvest at the end of the world. Mary has no reason to wait for the end of the world because, being sinless, there would be no justice in the separation of her body and soul by death.

Nor is the Assumption the Ascension. Jesus’ Ascension is accomplished by His power, the power of the Son of God. Mary’s Assumption — like Mary’s Immaculate Conception and everything else about her life — is all God’s gift (as is true for us). “The Almighty has done great things for me” (Lk 1:49), she declared, and Mary’s life is an expression of one great thing after another.

In that sense, Mary’s Assumption is a privilege deriving from her sinlessness. But, in another sense, we must remember that Mary is truly human. Mary is the “new Eve” and, as “new,” she certainly received graces from God. But as “Eve,” she also reveals what human beings should have been had they not sinned.

While we honor Mary and the particular privileges she received, we might also consider “what great things God has prepared for them that love Him” (I Cor 2:9).