It is Catholic Doctrine that it has been divinely revealed by God that Our Blessed Lady’s Assumption into Heaven was due to Her because of Her acceptance of Victimhood as the New Eve of the Redemption. For that was the way this latest Marian Dogma was traced by the defining Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, to the sources of Revelation in 1950. [See Vatican II - Marian Council by Rev. Fr.W.G.Most, ch. 5]. From this Dogmatic Teaching we will develop here the following theological thoughts which are at the Heart of the Marian Church:
... the role of the Blessed Virgin in the Mystery of the Incarnate Word and the Mystical Body... (Second Vatican Council Lumen Gentium, 54).
With these words the Council Fathers, assisted by the Holy Spirit, clearly indicate that they see the dual role played by Our Blessed Lady in the formation of the Human Body of Christ as well as His Mystical Body as two separate aspects of but One Mystery. Part of this Mystery, that is to say the great event that for one moment in history, at the Incarnation, the Mother of God was the Church, stood proxy for the whole Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, so that our Divine Saviour could save the world, including His Body the Church and His Holy Mother, as the Head of that Body, this Mystery is so full of consolation for us in our troubled times, that it warrants further investigation.
Pope Pius XII has infallibly taught us that this great union of Our Blessed Lady with the Church founded by Christ is a Mystery of our Catholic Faith, a Revealed Truth, to be believed by the whole Catholic Church as a Dogma of our Divine Faith. For it was on this great union that he founded the Dogma of Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven, body and soul. It was not the union between Mother and Son, but the inseparable union between Body and Head, between the New Eve and the New Adam, which finally became the vehicle by which the Dogma of the Assumption was traced to the sources of Revelation. Mary did not only freely cooperate with Her Divine Son as best She could, no, She provided the one essential element that had been hidden for all ages in the unsearchable depths of the Decree of God’s Wisdom: that His Son would save the world as the Head of His Body the Church. At the Incarnation, and later, on Calvary, She provided that Body....
St. Paul knew it:
“Such is the richness of the grace which He has showered on us in all Wisdom and insight. He has let us know the mystery of His purpose, the hidden plan He so kindly made in Christ from the beginning, to act upon when the times had run their course to the end: that He would bring everything together under Christ AS HEAD, everything in the Heavens and on earth”. [Eph. 1:7-10. See also Rom. 16:25; Gal. 4:4; Col. 1:16-20, esp. 18; etc.]
With the obvious meaning: as the Head of a Body, identified by St. Paul as His Church; not as a Head without a Body!
St. Paul knew after the great mystery had been revealed in Christ. How did Our Lady know beforehand ...? Before delving into this truly fascinating question it would be most appropriate if we could first acquire a more thorough appreciation of the doctrine of St. Paul as taught by Pope Pius XII in his Constitution Munificentissimus Deus of 1950, in which this great Pontiff not only declared for the whole Church the Dogma of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven, but also traced for us the roots of this Dogma to the sources of Revelation. Much space of the first 38 numbers of this magnificent document was devoted to a review of 1900 years of teaching on the Assumption by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.
Exalting this unanimous belief of Tradition: how proper and fitting Mary’s Assumption is, as the voice of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Father broke new ground in No. 39 to give this universal Faith of the Church the solid foundation in Revelation it still required. I shall first provide you here with the full translation of that famous number 39:
“We must remember especially that since the Second Century the Virgin Mary has been designated by the holy Fathers as the New Eve who, though subject to the New Adam, is most intimately associated with Him in that struggle against the infernal foe which, as was foretold in the Proto-Evangelium, would finally result in that most complete victory over Sin and Death, which are always mentioned together in the writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Consequently, just as the glorious Resurrection of Christ was an essential part and the final sign of this victory, so that struggle which was common to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Her Divine Son had to be brought to a close by the glorification of Her virginal body. For it is the same Apostle who says: When this mortal thing hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ (1 Cor. 15:54)”.
In his beautiful book Vatican II - Marian Council, the author Fr. William Most in his brief commentary on this text calls the thought of Pope Pius XII here both brilliant and difficult, the latter mainly because it is so closely knitted. The full force of the papal teaching springs to light from the Latin text: “the glorification of Her virginal body had to follow!” By necessity. And on what did the Holy Father place this necessity? On only one thing: on a common struggle! “...that struggle which was common to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Her Divine Son”.
In the first 38 numbers of his encyclical the Holy Father shows that he was well aware of all that which 1900 years of Tradition had taught on the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady. Mentioning and bypassing all the fitting reasons for Catholic belief in Our Lady’s glorious Assumption, Pope Pius XII broke new ground in No. 39 where at last he came to the crux of the whole matter: on what facts, revealed in Revelation and contained in Sacred Scripture was this solemn doctrine founded, for it to be declared Revealed Truth, infallibly true?
The Dogma of Mary’s Assumption body and soul into Heaven is not based by the defining Holy Father on any of Her privileges. It is not based on Her Immaculate Conception. Nor is it based on Her Divine Motherhood. It is really not based by the Pope on anything that God had done for Her: it is strictly speaking based on what Mary did for God! It is squarely based here by the defining Pontiff on Her absolutely free choice to go beyond the call of mere duty to that of Victimhood: to be the ‘New Eve’ with the ‘New Adam’ ... ! Let us see what stunning Revelation came out of that!