Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

Today's Mass Readings

Not many of us have left Mass on Corpus Christi crying out: “Transubstantiation!” Not many of us here have probably ever left the Feast of Christ the King to shout: “Viva Cristo Rey!” Yet in the year 431 after the Council of Ephesus, the common folk of that city ran through the streets in haste calling forth exultantly: Theotokos! They did this even though they did not know what this word meant… at least not exactly. These fervent Ephesians did not know all the theological nuances or arguments surrounding the term Theotokos. What they did know was that this term validated what they had always believed about Mary. Their faithful reading of Scripture and devotion to her told them that she was not simply the mother of Jesus the man, but the bearer of the totality of the Son of God made flesh. And this reality of who Mary the Mother of God is was a reality that caused them to proclaim her salvific role through the streets.

It is hard for us to understand such joy in our own day. It comes off as silly and the kind of behavior we expect after the Super Bowl, not a Church council. In our culture, we are used to compartmentalizing the various aspects of our lives, and our spiritual lives are no exception. On the one hand, we tend to over-intellectualize the Faith and keep it at arm’s length; on the other hand, we can be swept up in emotional experiences that accompany prayer without grounding it in truth. Today the burning question is this: How can the Mother of God teach us how to find integration?

In Luke’s account of the Savior’s birth, he ascribes the first witnesses to this mystery to be shepherds. Angels announced the birth, and setting out with simple faith in haste they found the infant Messiah with his parents. The angels brought this amazing message not to the learned men of the Torah, but to uneducated shepherds. The shepherd’s intuition led them to believe all that the heavenly messengers had told them, and they in turn became the first to proclaim the Incarnation to others. In between the angels’ theological locutions and the shepherd’s straightforward adoration stood Mary.

We know that Mary’s role was a part of God’s plan, not simply left up to chance that it could have been anyone. As Killian MacDonald writes: “Theologians reflected that Christ lived in the thought of God from eternity. No one could think of Christ’s beginnings without thinking of his mother, who was predestined to her role in the same thought – and this, without any desire to confuse Creator and creature.” Devotion spurred theological reflection, and doctrinal decrees fostered devotion. And through the centuries the unique role of Mary as the Theotokos, the God-bearer, causes the faithful to call upon her.

St. Paul recounts the importance of the Incarnation in the plan of salvation. He places God’s saving work firmly in history, and states that Jesus’ coming was fully human and yet not diluted in His divinity. He is the new Adam who takes away the sin that Adam’s children had inherited. Jesus was the new Adam and Mary the new Eve. Thus, this makes us newly adopted children of the Father. “So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir, through God.” This is why Mary could not simply have given birth to the human nature of Jesus, but she is the one who bore the Son of God. The divine maternity promises us equality with Christ as our brother, enabling us to cry “Abba, Father!”

Today when so many people have made haste to raise a glass and exclaim “Happy New Year!,” we can rejoice in Mary’s role. Though we may not run through the streets shouting Theotokos, we can renew our relationship to the Mother of God so as to be heirs with Jesus, the Son of God.

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB