The Feast of the Assumption of Mary  holds great importance in Catholicism. Some people in parts of Europe call it the ‘Easter of the summer’. In countries such as Spain and Italy, it marks it is the beginning of summer vacations. It is a time when people leave urban centers to escape the summer heat.  Because it is also at the time of the harvest some people call it the “Feast of Our Lady of the Harvest” . St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem at the time of Mary’s death, told the emperor “that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven.”  In the early Christian  centuries , many cities zealously guarded the relics of the  saints but there are no records of the remains of Mary’s body.  Pope Pius Xll, in 1950, declared that Mary “after the completion of her earthly life…was assumed body and soul into the glory of Heaven.”