Yesterday, Catholics celebrated the Feast of the Assumption, that is, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Feast of the Assumption is a holiday when Catholics remember the dogma of their faith that the Blessed Virgin Mary, after the end of her earthly life, was taken up to the glory of heaven in soul and body in the company of her resurrected son Jesus Christ.
This, as Catholics believe, is the end of her life dedicated to God, the peak and goal towards which every human existence is directed.
The doctrine of Mary’s ascension into heaven was proclaimed on November 1st, 1950 by Pope Pius XII, and the official proclamation was preceded by a long tradition of celebration, as old as Christianity itself.
On the Feast of the Assumption, believers celebrate and make pilgrimages to numerous Marian shrines in a large number of countries, mostly in Europe and South America.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the Feast of the Assumption is specially celebrated in Medjugorje, Siroki Brijeg, Posusje, Komusina, Kresevo, Tolisa, Trebinje, Stup, Uskoplje, Jajce, Sanski Most, Gradac, Nevesinje, Prisoje, Seonica, Dracevo, Scit.
Catholic believers recognize the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, in images from the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, at the beginning of the Bible – when Adam and Eve fell into the sin of mistrusting God and sinned – opposite the snake, a symbol of evil and the devil, God raises the sign of a woman who will tread on the snake’s head with the fruit of her womb.
The New Testament, on the other hand, in the last book of the Bible, the Apocalypse, reveals the great and terrible sign of the dragon, and opposite it there is the sign of a woman, a symbol of tenderness and love, goodness and beauty. A woman is pregnant, she is the bearer of life, and she brings hope for the future.