Today, Catholics and many other Christians celebrate the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This significant feast day recalls the spiritual and physical departure of the mother of Jesus Christ from the earth, when both her soul and her body were taken into the presence of God.

Venerable Pope Pius XII confirmed this belief about the Virgin Mary as the perennial teaching of the Church when he defined it formally as a dogma of Catholic faith in 1950, invoking papal infallibility to proclaim, “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

Whenever January 1, the solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God; or August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin; or November 1, the solemnity of All Saints falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, the obligation to attend Mass is lifted. The faithful, however, are encouraged to attend Mass on those days.