Feast of the Assumption of Mary

Today the Universal Church celebrates the bodily assumption of the Lord's mother (Mother of God) into heaven. Defined as official dogma in 1950, the concept of Mary's assumption has been written about since the 4th century. Basically, the Church teaches that Mary, at the moment of her physical death was taken body and soul to be with God in heaven. Because Mary was sinless, her body was spared  corruption and her sinless flesh was spared the degradation that all flesh will see.
       Did the Church "create" this doctrine to elevate Mary and purposefully take glory from Jesus?
NO, NOT AT ALL. Mary's assumption gives us all hope that we too on that final day will be raised by the power of His resurrection to be with Christ. Mary was "one of us" yet without sin, and the celebration of the Assumption reminds us that we too, like Mary will someday join the Lord in heaven.
   At the Mass tonight, there was no Mary worship, just thanks given to God for his blessed Mother and the way in which she points us to her Son.
 To learn more about the assumption, Scott Richert has a nice article here.

"As Calvin and other Protestant polemicists pointed out, medieval Catholic Europe did not lack for spurious relics. Multiple heads of John the Baptist, even foreskins of Christ, circulated on the relic market, to the amusement of some and disgust of others. But in the whole history of Christendom, no one ever came forth with a putative first class relic of the Blessed Virgin. The reason was plain."  David Anders, PhD (Calvinist to Catholic)

"By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: 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"   (Pipe Pius XII in MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS)