Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Today we celebrate the great feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since the Incarnation is the distinctively Christian dogma that marks it out from other religions, the Church rightly gives especial veneration to the Mother of God Incarnate, who was chosen to be the mother of the Word made flesh.
The Council of Ephesus in 431 affirmed her to be the Theotokos, the God-bearer, for she conceived in her womb the Word made flesh. As the hymn has it:
How blest that Mother in whose shrine The great Artificer divine Whose hand contains the earth and sky Ordained as in his Ark to lie.
The Church honours Mary as pre-eminent among the saints, not as a figure of independent greatness in her own right, but rather in relation to the child whom she bore, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law, that they might obtain the adoption of sons.
Blessed were the chosen people, Out of whom her Lord did come Blessed was the land of promise, Fashioned for his earthly home But more blessed was the mother, She who bare him in her womb.
God in Christ has entered the world to redeem us from the curse that fell upon our race as a consequence of the fall of man. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. The Church Fathers develop this point further by saying that Mary’s positive response to the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation, “Be it unto me according to thy Word,” reverses Eve’s disobedience.
Our vocation as Christians is to become by grace what he is by nature, who humbled himself to share our humanity that we might share his divinity. Mary is the supreme example of one who became by grace what he is by nature. It is therefore right that we celebrate her Conception, her Nativity, her Presentation in the Temple and her Dormition or Assumption.
Today’s feast, her Maternity, reminds us especially of her role as the Theotokos, the mother of the Word made flesh. This truth was affirmed at the Council of Ephesus in 431 as a consequence of the controversy between Nestorius and St. Cyril of Alexandria.
Nestorius and Cyril disagreed about the nature of the person of Christ and how his humanity and his divinity were present in the same person. Nestorius belonged to the school of Antioch. This rightly emphasised the humanity of Christ, but distinguished so strongly between his humanity and his divinity that it seemed to undermine the unity of his person.
Cyril belonged to the school of Alexandria. This started from the unity of Christ’s person, rather than the distinction between his humanity and his divinity, but placed less emphasis on his humanity than the school of Antioch. Both schools of thought had an important role to play in the life of the Church, but as is often the case, they fell into conflict through pressing a point to such an extent that it became a heresy rather than a statement of orthodoxy.
The controversy was started by Nestorius because he declined to use a title used in popular devotion about Mary, the Theotokos or God-bearer. Nestorius believed that the use of this title implied a confusion between the humanity and divinity of Christ. He believed that Mary should be called “Mother of Man” or “Mother of Christ”, not “bearer of God”, since she was the mother of Christ’s humanity rather than his divinity.
By contrast, Cyril argued that Nestorius’ repudiation of the title Theotokos was a denial of the doctrine of the Incarnation, that the Word was made flesh. Mary bore not simply a man closely united to God, but a single and undivided person who is both God and man.
Cyril stated in his second letter to Nestorius that “The Godhead and the manhood complete for us the one Lord and Christ and Son by their unutterable and unspeakable concurrence into unity” and that “we do not worship a man conjointly with the Word, but we worship one and the same person.”
The whole idea of reconciliation between God and man in Christ would be lost without this doctrine, for it depends on the truth that Christ in both his natures is one Person. The doctrine of redemption depends upon the truth that one Person is acting in both the divine and the human acts, so that in his death on the cross it is God who dies in human nature.
Hence, in his third letter to Nestorius Cyril stated that “If anyone does not confess that the Emmanuel is in truth God, and that therefore the holy Virgin is the Mother of God, for she gave birth after a fleshly manner to the Word made flesh, let him be anathema.”
Mary is therefore rightly called the Theotokos because she is the mother, not of the divine nature, but of him who is personally God in all that appertains to both his natures.
Commenting on the implications of this controversy, Kallistos Ware states:
“The name Theotokos safeguards the unity of Christ’s person: to deny her this title is to separate the incarnate Christ into two, breaking down the bridge between God and humanity and erecting within Christ’s person a middle wall of partition. Thus we can see that not only titles of devotion were involved at Ephesus, but the very message of salvation. The same primacy that the word homoousios occupies in the doctrine of the Trinity, the word Theotokos holds in the doctrine of the Incarnation….
“We honour Mary because she is the Mother of our God. We do not venerate her in isolation, but because of her relation to Christ… Anyone who thinks out the implications of that great phrase, The Word was made flesh, cannot but feel a profound awe for her who was chosen as the instrument of so surpassing a mystery. When people refuse to honour Mary, only too often it is because they do not really believe in the reality of the Incarnation.”
We honour Mary, as higher than the cherubim and more glorious than the seraphim because she, above all, in giving birth to the Word made flesh in time and history, and being at the foot of the Cross in his Passion, sought first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.
Praise O Mary. Praise the Father
Praise thy Saviour and thy Son
Praise the Everlasting Spirit
Who hath made thee Ark and Throne
O’er all creatures high exalted
Lowly praise the three in One.
Hail Mary! Hail Mary! Hail Mary! Full of grace.
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Leave a Reply