REFLECTIONS ON THE ASSUMPTION, SCIENCE, ST. ARNOLD JANSSEN
AND THE TORONTO
On the Feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Mother into heaven, the fact that St. Arnold Janssen was a scientist and mathematician, for whom faith must be grounded on science, and in the wake of the Toronto pronouncements from our Superior General, Fr. Antonio Pernia, SVD, that the role of the laity is the sanctification of the temporal order, I am inspired to share with you my humble two cents worth of reflection on all of the above.
At the risk of some of you guys giving a big yawn to reading the random ramblings of a retired oldtimer like myself, and consequently transferring your attention elsewhere with a click of the mouse, let me nonetheless begin. Friends, Romans and ex-seminarians, lend me your eyes!
The bodily Assumption of Mary into heaven was dogmatically and infallibly defined by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950, in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus, as a Dogma that all Catholics in good standing should believe. The reason behind this is the notion that Mary, who gave birth to the divine Son of God, from whose body the Almighty derived His own body, cannot be tainted by any sin – personal or original – and therefore was conceived without original sin in the Immaculate Conception. Consequently, at the end of her earthly life, she was ready to share the eternal bliss with God, which is our common destiny as sons of God, and was accordingly assumed body and soul into heaven.
Let us now examine the notion of original sin.
The Bible says that in the beginning, our first parents, Adam and Eve, frolicked in the Garden of Eden innocent and without guile. They had no notion of what is good and what is evil. Then the Lord God commanded them, " Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:16).
Of course the woman had to test this hypothesis – the Serpent notwithstanding – and tasted the tantalizing fruit. The man, who could not bear to see his mate suffer the Lord’s wrath alone (noon pa, commander in chief na ang babae!), also ate of the fruit. Both of them suddenly realized they were naked and hastily covered themselves with leaves and bark of trees. Their punishment came swift and sudden. God banished them from Eden
Does the above seeming mythical narrative stand up to scientific scrutiny? I believe it does. The Bible may not be a book of science but a book of Faith, but at times it provides remarkable insights into scientific truth, and clothes scientific facts in terms understandable to the people who were its first readers thousands of years ago. For example it gives an uncannily correct sequence of the development and evolution of the cosmos, of the Solar System, of Earth and of its denizens, including the Human:
| BIBLE | SCIENCE | |||
| TIME PERIOD | EVENT | TIME PERIOD | EVENT | |
| First Day | "Let there be Light!" | 15 Billion Years | Big Bang | |
| Second Day | God created the Heavens | 14 B years ago | formation of galaxies | |
| Third Day | God created Earth | 5 B years ago | Solar System, Earth | |
| Fourth Day | God created Plants | 4 B years ago | first plant cells appeared | |
| Fifth Day | God created Animals | 2 B years ago | first animal cells appeared | |
| Sixth Day | God created the Human | 200 K years ago | Homo Sapiens appeared | |
| Seventh Day | God rested | present | Age of the Human | |
Then it gives the framework for the evolution of the Human from the hominids. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve roamed freely, innocently, without guile, and without the capacity to distinguish good from evil., which is a perfect description of your household pets and wild animals. But when they partook of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they instantly lost their primal innocence, realized that they were naked, and prompted the Deity to declare that the humans have become like them, with knowledge of what is good and what is evil. And God banished them forwith from the Garden of Eden, the land of primal innocence.
Now let us turn to science. From fossil studies, scientists have established that the first humans appeared around 150,000 years ago – fellows who were intelligent, had reflexive self-consciousness, with large brains, culture, belief in the afterlife, etc. In fact by mitochondrial DNA tracing (research by Drs. Rebecca Cann and Martin Richards), they have showed that all humans can be traced back to one woman - the ancient mitochondrial "Eve" - who lived in Africa around 150,000 years ago. And uncanningly this is exactly what the Bible says when it posits Eve as the first woman and mother of all humankind. Adam is lost somewhere in the scientific analysis (sorry na lang, mga Tol! Kaya nga under the saya tayo since Eve!).
It seems to me that the innocent and guileless Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden were our ancestor hominids before they evolved into Homo Sapiens Sapiens. The Bible depicts that the transition from being animals to being fully human is a result of their eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil seventy generations ago. Science dates this transition just a little bit more than 150,000 years ago. It argues that this was a result of the development of larger brains, which in turn resulted to reflexive self-consciousness, intelligence, culture, and other human characteristics. The end result of both biblical and scientific explanations are the same: the evolution of the hominid into the Human, the transition from animal to man.
I am sure St. Arnold, the scientist and mathematician, will appreciate this basic concurrence between science and the Bible, which was not known yet during his time.
And with this transition, the Human now has the choice to do good or evil. Which is the basic requirement for freedom and the basic distinction between man and beast, as it were. Furthermore, with this freedom came the basic human tendency and potential to do good and to do evil., which he did not have in his guileless innocence as a hominid. The tendency to do evil was termed Original Sin, and the tendency to do good, was left unnamed, which I now term in counterpoint as the Original Blessing. For indeed, if the Human is tainted with Original Sin, he is also ennobled with Original Blessing.
Historically, the Church’s practice and aura was more of doom and gloom because of Original Sin, and less of celebration and joy, because of Original Blessing. Thankfully, this trend is now being reversed. It may be noteworthy that when I counted the times in the four Gospels when Jesus asked the people to repent of their sins (Original Sin), and the times that He did good (Original Blessing), the ratio was around 30:70 in favor of the latter. In other words, Jesus emphasized more the Original Blessing (70%), rather than Original Sin (30%).
With these basic opposing tendencies within him and his resultant freedom, the Human has a lifelong task to exercise his freedom always to do good, such that he now eventually becomes free from the tendency to do evil. In other words, he should exercise and develop his tendency to do good to such a degree that the pull of evil and concupiscence does not anymore hold any attraction for him. This is real freedom and the fullness thereof. This is the goal of spiritual development and perfection for all men. This is also the ultimate goal of most of the world religions. The people who attain this in their lifetime are called saints, even if they are not officially canonized as such. When they die, they immediately attain the Beatific Vision and Union with God, which is the goal of all humanity.
And this is where the Toronto Message of SG Fr. Tony Pernia, SVD, comes in. In our exercise of our freedom to do good, he urges us not to flee from the secular world, but rather to embrace it, sanctify it, and bring it to the embrace and ambit of the Kingdom of God
“So, in another sense, as “light of the world”, followers of Jesus are called to illumine the world, and to cast out the darkness that envelops it. Christians are called to transform whatever is evil in the world through their works of justice and charity.”
“Thus, “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”; the task of bringing out the goodness of the world and the task of casting out whatever is evil in the world; the witness of Christian presence in the world and the witness of Christian action in the world.”
In other words, our task of making ourselves truly free is in the building up of the Kingdom of God
The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Our Blessed Mother to Heaven can also be seen in this light. The famous Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong noted that for belief in God to be relevant in this ultra modern world and scientific times, belief in the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, the Virgin Birth, Resurrection and the Holy Eucharist has to be rooted out. In counterpoint, let me just dwell on our topics of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption for the moment.
As noted earlier in this reflective paper, the Immaculate Conception is the condition and the basis for the Assumption. For Mary was conceived without Original Sin, and did not commit any personal sin in her lifetime. Thus she was worthy of her bodily Assumption into Heaven and the Beatific Vision at the end of her earthly life. This could only mean that from the very start of her earthly existence in her mother’s womb, she was not tainted by Original Sin, but was fully blest with Original Blessing. By the grace of God, she had acquired the fullness of freedom right from the very start of her earthly existence, which is the freedom to do only good, and not feel any attraction to do evil.
Mary thus becomes the model and prototype of what the Human should be. For even if Jesus was also bodily assumed into heaven even before Mary, He is both God and Man at the same time. Mary was the first totally human person to achieve this end goal of humanity, and therefore gives us hope and help to achieve the same with the grace of God.
This may be beyond science, but certainly it does not contradict science. For in our earthly state, science can only teach us so much. To paraphrase the great Albert Einstein, the true scientist is one who knows that the more he knows, the more he knows of the little that he knows. And Reality is bigger than science. In our present condition only Faith can make up the difference. And as shown above, the Bible at times is a harbinger of science, and there are times when science has to look to Faith to get a handle on the framework of Reality.
God bless you! Mama Mary loves you!
submitted by: Sammy Yap, XVD
Feast of the Assumption, 2010
