From: db7n+@andrew.cmu.edu (D. Andrew Byler)
Subject: Re: Question about Virgin Mary
Organization: Freshman, Civil Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 28

>As the moderator noted, I think you mean the Assumption.  Catholics
>believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary went to Heaven body *and* soul at
>the end of her life.  This is unusual because the normal course of
>events is for your body to decay in the grave and stay that way until
>the Resurrection of the Dead.

Well, it wasn't that way for Enoch and Elijah, both of whom were
translated directly into heaven.  It's beyond my grasp why some object
that Mary, who was far greater than either Enoch or Elijah, should not
benefit from the same privelege they recieved.  She was after all,
Mother of God, full of grace, and immaculate.

>Historically, belief in the Assumption can be found in the writings of
>St. Gregory of Tours (late 6th century).

And in St. Germain of Constantinople and St. John of Damascus, and in
St. Andrew of Crete, among others.

And it should be noted that the Monophysite Chruches of Egypt and Syria
also hold to this belief as part of divine revelation, even though they
broke away from the unity of the Chruch in 451 AD by rejecting the
Council of Chalcedon.  It might be argued by some Protestants that the
Catholics and Orthodox made this belief up, but the Monophysites, put a
big hole in that notion, as they also hold the belief, and they split
from the Chruch before the belief was first annunciated in writing (as
far as is known, much has been lost from the time of the Fathers).

Andy Byler
