What's the Difference Between Jesus's Ascension and Mary's Assumption?
Christians believe that, forty days after his Resurrection, Jesus “was carried up into heaven” (Lk 24:51). We call this his Ascension. The Christian tradition also holds that Mary, his mother, “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”1 This is what Catholics commemorate in their August 15th celebration of Mary’s Assumption.
But what’s the difference between an assumption and an ascension? In Germany, the same word is used for both events — himmelfahrt. Jesus’ Ascension is called Christihimmelfahrt while Mary’s Assumption is called Mariahimmelfahrt.2 Is there a reason why, in English, we have two separate words?
There is! And the difference picks up on an important theological distinction.
In both cases, Jesus and Mary are mysteriously carried over into a new existence. The difference pertains to who gets to do the carrying. In Jesus’s case, he carries himself into heavenly glory. He’s God, and so he enters heaven by his own divine power. Mary can’t do this. She’s human. She can’t enter God’s presence by her own power. It must be God who carries her.
We can see something of this in the etymology of the words. “Ascension” comes from the Latin verb scandere, which means “to climb.” In an ascension, the agency lies with the one doing the ascending. The word “assumption,” on the other hand, is related to the Latin verb adsumere, which means “to take up to oneself.” In Mary’s Assumption, then, God has the agency. It is not Mary “climbing,” but God taking her up.
Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (1950), §44.
Anthony Lo Bello, “Ascension,” in Origins of Catholic Words: A Discursive Dictionary (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2020), 50.