Assumption

Christ ascended by his own power; Mary was assumed — taken up — by God's. The Church teaches that the Immaculate Virgin, preserved from all stain of sin, was at the end of her earthly life taken body and soul into the glory of heaven, sharing already in her Son's Resurrection and anticipating the resurrection of all Christians. Pius XII defined the dogma in 1950 after consulting the world's bishops, and the East has long kept the same feast as the Dormition, the “falling asleep,” of the Mother of God.