On Thursday, August 15, the Solemnity of The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Holy Day of Obligation. On this day the Church celebrates one of the most important feasts of the Liturgical Year dedicated to Mary Most Holy. At the end of her earthly life Mary was taken up, body and soul, into Heaven, that is, into the glory of eternal life, into full and perfect communion with God. Like her own son, having overcome death, she finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her privileges as the mother of God, the gift of being preserved free from the corruption of the tomb. Since the earliest centuries of the Church, this feast, known also as the dormition of Mary (dormitio), commemorates the event as Mary was known to have fallen into a deep sleep as her body and soul were taken into the glory of Heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages. On this day, all Catholics are obliged to attend Holy Mass for the Solemnity.
