In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Tim Staples to discuss the Assumption of Mary. Tim explains why this doctrine is not just a poetic legend but an essential belief rooted in Scripture and Church tradition.
Transcript:
Caller: The Assumption of Mary. What is it that if I were to become Catholic, I must, Biblically speaking,
Tim Staples: I argue that it’s pretty plain the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, if you Understand Revelation chapter 12, verse 1, where John, and remember John is receiving a vision when he’s on the isle of Patmos of Heaven itself. And the Heavenly Liturgy as it is being carried out, it’s basically the Mass that we participate on earth is sort of a participation in this Heavenly liturgy. And right in the middle of it you have in Revelation chapter 12, Behold the woman clothed with the sun and under her feet, the moon on her head, a crown of 12 stars. And if you go down to verses four and five, you see she is in labor to give birth. And she gives birth to the man child who is rule the nations with a rod of iron. Of course, that’s a fulfillment of Psalm 2, a messianic Psalm that says the man child is to rule the nations with a rod of iron. That’s Jesus. So she gives birth to Jesus and then later in verse 17, she gives birth to all of those who have the testimony of Jesus Christ and keep his commandments. Hence we have both mother of Mary being the mother of God, the mother of Jesus as well as the mother of all of us. But who is this prophetic woman? Now I know as a Protestant, I taught, oh, it’s Israel. And there are some Protestants who will say it’s the Church. They’ll say it’s Israel or the Church, but it’s not the Blessed Virgin Mary. Well, the Catholic Church has a polyvalent understanding of Sacred Scripture meaning. And by the way, this should be really clear to folks, no matter if you’re Protestant or Catholic, of course Scripture has a polyvalent understanding. All of Sacred Scripture, you look at the Old Testament, you have real historical things going on there. But there’s always another level. There’s a fuller sort of fulfillment that comes in the New Testament. Well, in the New Testament you often have texts that have, in fact virtually all the time in Sacred Scripture it has multi level meanings. That’s what we mean by polyvalent, right? Because it applies in the first century to the people to whom St. Paul is writing a letter. But it also has a fuller sense that it applies to all the people of God down to the end of time. And so when you look at the Book of Revelation, you can say, we can say as Catholics, yeah, it’s the Old Testament. The woman is the Old Testament people of God. It’s the New Testament people of God. But on the literal Level, as Pope Benedict the 16th said brilliantly, I believe it was in his Jesus of Nazareth series. He points out that who is the literal woman who gave birth to Jesus? This is not difficult. It’s Mary, right? She gave birth to the man child to rule the nations while they’re out of iron. And you have to take that on the literal sense, because if you say no, it’s actually a corporate sort of. Yeah, it looks like a person, but it’s actually the corporate people of God from the old or the new or both. The problem is, if you look at the entirety of the chapter, you have four main characters, right? You have Mary, you have Jesus or the woman, let’s say. And then you have the man child who is Jesus, and you have the dragon who is the devil, and you have the angel. So you have four characters, and they are real individual. Well, now, we haven’t proven that with the woman yet. So let’s go to the other three. The other three are real persons. And by the way, this is all paralleled. The fulfillment comes from Genesis chapter three, where you also have four characters. You have Adam, you have Eve, you have the devil, and you have the angel right in the garden, you know, the angel with the flaming fire. So you have four real persons. Four, excuse me, three real persons. Well, it just doesn’t fit to say Mary is a sort of a representation of a corporate number of people, at least not on the literal level, argues Pope Benedict xvi. See, and so, you know, this is one of many reasons why I came to see that this woman is clearly the Blessed Virgin Mary. And once you get there, and we could talk about more about why this is Blessed Virgin Mary. But here’s the bottom line. What do we conclude from this? Well, she’s in heaven. And you say, well, there’s lots of folks in heaven. Whoop de do you have the martyrs in Revelation 6. 9? They’re in heaven. So big deal, right? But here’s the difference. The martyrs in Revelation 6. 9, it says the souls of the martyrs are in heaven. Whereas in Revelation 12, there’s a body, right, With a head, feet, so forth. There’s an emphasis on the bodily presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary in heaven that hints. Now, we don’t see, the Scripture doesn’t give us a Photoshop of Mary’s body actually going up into the clouds. But she had to get there, right? Hence the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And then one other thing I would point out to you, brother, is if you go back one verse before Revelation 12, one, you go back to Revelation 11, verse 19. And you see something really important because again, as we mentioned before the break, John is seeing a vision of heaven here and here. You know, right before he sees the woman clothed with the sun, he sees the temple in heaven. Now, you and I know, my brother and I knew this from my Protestant days, that that temple is not that massive stone structure, right, that took 46 years to build in Jerusalem. No, the temple is What, John, chapter 2, verse 11, right? The temple Jesus spoke of was his body, right? So the temple is the body of Christ. So when John sees the temple in heaven, what is he saying? Not seeing, not just Jesus, but the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus, bodily present. Sorry, my Jehovah’s Witness, friends, he’s there bodily, right? His body is in heaven. But then what do you see? The Ark of the Covenant in the temple. Well, what is the Ark of the Covenant? Oh, this is what blew my mind, my friend. When I was Protestant studying Mariology, I saw. Oh, my goodness, you go all the way back to Luke’s Gospel. You remember that when Mary first conceived Jesus, she immediately, the scripture says, made haste to go and visit her cousin Elizabeth, right? Who was six months with child. And when she enters into the house of Elizabeth, what does Elizabeth say? Who am I that the. Well, she said other things in verse 42 there. But in verse 43, who am I that the mother of my Lord should come unto me? And notice in verse. Oh, gosh, what would that be? Verse 56, she remained with Elizabeth for three months, right? From the sixth month to her ninth, of course, but she remained for three months. Now, why is this significant? Because if you go back to 2nd Samuel, chapter 6, verse 9, those are almost the verbatim words, only change two words, the verbatim words of King David, when David experienced the presence of the Ark of the Covenant. You’ll remember this from your Bible history, my friend. David had just conquered Israel, basically, and what would become the capital of Israel, which is Jerusalem? And what is he doing? He brings the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. And when he experiences a powerful manifestation of the Ark, he says, who am I that the Ark of my Lord should come unto me? In other words, I’m unworthy. And notice it says in verse 11, he had the ark, then sent to the house of a man named Obedidum. And then it says, the ark remained in the house of Obededom for three months. I mean, there are more parallels here, my friend, but the bottom line is Mary is revealed in Sacred Scripture. And that’s why I mentioned at the outset of this question, this is stuff that comes from the Bible, right? And Pope Pius XII said that when he promulgated the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in 1950. This is rooted in Sacred Scripture. When you understand that Mary is the Ark of the Covenant. Oh, my goodness. There are lots of things we could talk about. But let’s go back to Revelation 11:19. And what does John see in Heaven? He sees the temple and the Ark of the Covenant, my friend, if the temple, isn’t that stone enormous, One of the wonders of the ancient world Temple. But it was the body of Christ physically present in heaven. What is the Ark of the Covenant? Is it that wooden box made out of acacia wood and overlain with gold in Exodus 25? No, it is the Blessed Virgin Mary. And very important, not just the Blessed Virgin Mary, but her body. She is bodily present in heaven with her divine Son. And that leads into Revelation 12. One, the woman clothed with the sun on her head, the crown of 12 stars, and so forth. Again, reinforcing that the ark is a woman. The ark is the Blessed Virgin Mary. So that’s just some of the reasons why the Catholic Church teaches the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary that the Blessed Virgin Mary is in heaven bodily. Not just spiritually like the Martyrs of Revelation 6. Nine, but bodily. And is my brother still with me here after all that?
Caller: Yeah, it’s. I mean, I hadn’t heard of that description of Revelation before. I’m more than happy to go read it some more.
Tim Staples: Hey, well, I’ll tell you what, brother. We’re going to send you out a copy of my book where I go into a lot more detail than I can do here.