Solemnity

"On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII solemnly proclaimed as a divinely revealed truth "that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, on the completion of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heaven."

By the fifth century, August fifteenth was kept at Jerusalem as the Commemoration of the Mother of God. In the sixth century the feast of Mary's Falling Asleep spread throughout the East Finally in the eighth century the day was celebrated as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Encyclical Munificentissimus Deus, before defining the dogma, reviewed the increasing awareness of this truth over the centuries, recalled the words of Holy Scripture which the fathers and theologians used to support their considerations and underlined this dogma's harmony with many other truths of the faith, such as Christ's resurrection and our own." Lives of the Saints, Augustine Kalberer, O.S.B.

See the calendar for more information about the Solemnity of the Assumption.