Mary, Mother of God

CatholicExchange.com ^ | 12-31-06 | Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D.

[Salvation]

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Mary, Mother of God

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Marcellino D'Ambrosio

December 31, 2006

The mother of the Messiah has been called many things in the last 2000 years — the Virgin Mary, Our Lady, the Blessed Mother.  But call her "the Mother of God" and you'll see some Christians squirm.

This is nothing new.  One day in the early fifth century, a priest preached a stirring sermon in the presence of the patriarch of Constantinople.  His subject was the holy mother of Jesus.  The preacher continually referred to Mary as the "Theotokos" meaning "God-bearer" or mother of God.  This was no innovation — Christians had invoked Mary under this title for at least two hundred years.  Nevertheless, at the close of the sermon, the patriarch ascended the steps of the pulpit to correct the preacher.  We should call Mary the Mother of Christ, said Patriarch Nestorius, not the Mother of God.  She was the mother of His human nature, not the mother of His divinity.

His comment sparked a riot.  And the dispute rocked not only the congregation, but the entire empire.  Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, immediately recognized that Nestorius's Marian theology was a symptom of a much deeper problem, a problem with the incarnation itself.  For to deny Mary the title "Mother of God" makes of Jesus a dichotomy, a split personality.  It would mean that God had not really embraced our humanity so as to become human.  Rather, the humanity of Christ is hermetically sealed off from the divinity, as if Jesus were two persons, as if human nature were so distasteful that God, in Christ, had to keep it at arm's distance.  It is OK, according to Nestorius, to say that in Jesus, God raised Lazarus, or multiplied the loaves, or walked on water.  But it is not OK to say that in Jesus God is born or that God died.

Cyril, aware that this was a challenge to the heart of our faith, demanded that an ecumenical council be called to settle the matter.  So in 431, the Council of Ephesus met under Cyril's leadership and solemnly proclaimed that Mary is indeed rightly to be honored as the Theotokos, the Mother of God.  It proclaimed that from the moment of His conception, God truly became man.  Of course Mary is a creature and could never be the origin of the eternal Trinity, God without beginning or end.  But the second person of the blessed Trinity chose to truly become man.  He did not just come and borrow a human body and drive it around for awhile, ascend back to heaven, and discard it like an old car.  No, at the moment of His conception in the womb of Mary, an amazing thing happened.  God the Son united Himself with a human nature forever.  Humanity and divinity were so closely bound together in Jesus, son of Mary, that they could never be separated again.  Everything that would be done by the son of Mary would be the act both of God and of man.  So indeed it would be right to say that a man raised Lazarus from the dead and commanded the wind and waves, that God was born that first Christmas day and that, on Good Friday, God died.

The Council of Ephesus, once confirmed by the pope, became the third ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, and its teaching in this matter is dogma, truth revealed by God which all are bound to accept.

So why does the Roman liturgy celebrate the Octave of Christmas as the Feast of Mary the Mother of God?  Because this paradoxical phrase strikes at the very heart of Christmas.  The songs we sing and the cards we write extol the babe of Bethlehem as Emmanuel, God-with-us.  He is so with us that after Gabriel's visit to the Virgin of Nazareth, the Divine Word can never again be divided from our humanity.  What God has joined, let no man separate.

Dr. D'Ambrosio studied under Avery Cardinal Dulles for his Ph.D. in historical theology and taught for many years at the University of Dallas. He now directs www.crossroadsinitiative.com, which offers Catholic resources for RCIA, adult faith formation, and teens, with a special emphasis on the Year of the Eucharist, the Theology of the Body, the early Church Fathers, and the sacrament of confirmation.

(This article originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor and is used by permission of the author.)

[adiaireton8]

Shortly I will be studying to become a Catholic, for I have found their faith, their knowledge, and their love for God to be of the highest caliber...

Welcome home dear sister. Thank you so much for sharing your story. All the angels and all the Saints, and all us Catholic pilgrims, embrace you warmly with joy and affection and gratitude to God. We eagerly anticipate your reception into full communion with the Church. May God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, continue to bless, encourage and protect you as you pursue Him. I have no doubt that your son is among those in that great cloud of witnesses that is now cheering you on. He shared in the sufferings of Christ, and now he is rewarded with joy overflowing and eternal.

-A8

[D-fendr]

thank you for your story and your faith..

welcome Home.

[Mad Dawg]

I am not in the camp that says that merely referring to the angelic salutation provides Scriptural proof of the doctrine of Immaculate conception. I was an Episcopal priest and went to Virginia Theological Serfminary back when they were in a neo-Orthodox, "Karl Barth is da Bomb" phase, so I'm reasonably acquainted with Protestant belief.

And yeah, I get that saying "Mary" in front of a Protestant is like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

[Mad Dawg]

I'm not sure why you addressed this to me. Wiser folk than I have debated the word adelphos (as in Philadelphia!), and I wouldn't be surprised if your priest were right, but again, I don't think there are enough instances of its usage in Koine Greek to make certain that it was to be understood one way or the other. Ceretainly the use of the word "brethren" in English is, first of all, an archaic plural and synonymous with "brothers" and used as an image, the way I thought of folks in Law Enforcement as my "brothers".

For me the "problem" of Mary's perpetual virginity is as much about our normal experience of concupiscence, the sort of spiritual static of desire, as anything else. It's not so much about sex qua sex as it is about reacting to everything I see with either a "Gimme!" or a "Take it away!" I'm working on how I could articulate this comprehensibly, but just this past year I got sort of a flash on why it was right for Dante to have everyone go through the "lust" circle of Purgatory. But I have some more thinking to do about this.

[Mad Dawg]

And so the "Mother of God" sinks slowly in the west, and we say a wistful, "Farewell," to the topic of the thread.

Periodically some non-caucus Protestant topic is posted, usually about arminianism v double predestination or something of the kind. There is no urge that I'm aware of for me to come in and tear up the pea-patch and being up every beef I have with Protestantism, in its multifarious splendor.

But within a hundred or so posts from the beginning of a thread about Catholics teaching on and devotion to the Virgin here it all comes implicitly or explicitly, The Authority of Scripture v. tradition, merit v. grace, immaculate conception, at least one shot hurtling in the general direction of the doctrine of the Trinity. It's as though there's one thing Protestants can get back together on, Them Calflicks need to be STOPPED! We can't even let them articulate what they think, we've got to stop them.

And then there's the phenomenon of the line of arguments infinitely wide but one deep: We'll fire the Immaculate conception argument, then step down the line and fire the merit v. grace argument, and then down the line to the next controversy.

There are some physicians who kill babies born alive, and others who will amputate perfectly healthy limbs of people who will pay for it. Yet in general we all think modern medicine and modern surgery are pretty good things. But if some wacko who can't think reasonably about what co-redemptrix might mean wants to promote Mary to Divine status, then we should throw out the decision and usage of the united Church since middle of the fifth century. Are there no Protestant teachings perversions of which have led to Spiritual disaster?

OR, try it again: The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a society of the elect. The disease is so virulent and so pandemic that even he hospital staff are infected, and one way or another they will show symptoms of illness. Sometimes a particular manifestation of the illness will crop up with the same symptoms in a number of different people.

On-lookers say, "I don't want to go to THAT hospital. Every one there is SICK!" It's like the problem with assessing hospitals on the basis of how many people die there. When I was a Chaplain at MGH, we had cases which other hospital s couldn't figure out sent to us, and our geniuses could only figure out some of them, so we had a lot of people die. Our high rate of death was precisely BECAUSE we were a good hospital, almost a hospital of last resort.

So the novel perturbations of sound doctrine and the bouts of Mariolatry out there on the fringes are, to me, as much an indication of the validity of the doctrines and of the RC church in general as anything else.

If we never leave the house, we won't get in car wrecks. WE won't get anywhere either. If we don't enter into Marian devotion, we won't risk Mariolatry. We'll miss a lot too.

[Blogger]

Whatever A8. Have fun hurling your heretical accusations. The biblical case is what it is. Your doctrines are extra-biblical and worse, non-scriptural.

[trisham]

but I tell you, I know what I felt

*************

I hope your words have touched the hearts of others as they have touched mine. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

[Claud]

As anectdotal evidence (sp? I'ts late-), if you go to a typical Catholic store on the web, there is much more focus on Mary than on Jesus. She is given titles of Christ for herself.

Your concern is very understandable but let me add something that may help alleviate some of it.

The central and most important part of the Catholic's devotional life is not statues or saying prayers like the Rosary. It is the Mass--to which every other devotion is an addendum. Now here is the text of Mass as currently offered in the US: http://catholic-resources.org/ChurchDocs/Mass.htm

Looking over the text of the liturgy, I can count three places where the Virgin Mary is explicitly mentioned. The first in Option 1 of the Confiteor or Penitential Rite. The second is in the Creed where it says Christ is "born of the Virgin Mary". The third is in the various Eucharistic prayers (see the link to them on that page) where it mentions her in context of all the saints.

The rest of the Mass is all about the Trinity. It is God the Father to whom we offer the sacrifice, not Mary. It is the Holy Spirit who we call down to effect the transubstantiation, not Mary. It is Jesus whom is being sacrificed and whom we receive at Communion, not Mary. Even though a Mass can be offered *in honor of Mary* or any saint, no Mass is ever offered TO Mary.

My point is that it may look like our devotion to Mary is excessive if you only look at the prayers we say and the devotions. When you consider, however, that those devotions are not standing alone but are a *supplement* to the Holy Mass which is SOOOOO totally focused on Jesus and the Trinity, then everything looks a little more in proportion to what all of us admit to be the case: that Jesus is God and that Mary is a creature.

[redgolum]

In defense of A.R., I have been to a few Catholic (maybe CINO) churches where there is no cross on the altar or crucifix, but a big statue of Mary right over the central altar. The only statue of Jesus I say was in the back off to the side in a separate room. It was a very weird church, and my wife did not want to go back.

The parish she now belongs to has a smaller crucifix, but it is a pretty new building.

[bornacatholic]

Peter resurrected Tabitha. protestants resurrect heresies.

As you know only too well, Blogger is trying to do the same thing on this thread what he has ALREADY gone ON and ON and ON and ON and ON and ON and ON and ON and ON and On and ON and ON about on another thread.

Apparently, pertinacity in error is considered a virtue in some circles.

[Always Right]

I will have to go through my video to find the exact details of the particular church. Out of the twenty or so churches I went through, a couple of them I thought were tacky in their disreguard of Christ. Of course these Churches were at tourist trap locations, so how representative they were or what kind of standing they have with the Catholic Church is questionable. I was probably out of line to say 'many', but these churches do exist.

[aruanan]

Does that mean that challenging the basic premise with Scripture such as Romans 3:23 and 5:12 is not allowed?

That doesn't mean that Mary isn't the mother of God.

[Mad Dawg]

I had two inchoate thoughts to throw into the stew. The first is about the nature of systematic argument. My example is Newton's laws. We do not prove the three laws of motion. But if we grant them, we find that they explain all the macro phenomena and many of the mini phenomena. They enable a following train of discourse, analysis, invention, blah blah blah.

So likewise with at least some doctrines. WE don't prove them from Scripture, but once we assume them, we find we can make sense (as we see it anyway) of Scripture, our lives, our relationship with God, and so forth. That's kind of a global observation which MIGHT advance some understanding about why, when somebody says,"You can't prove such and such from Scripture," we don't get all upset and start scurrying off after proof-texts. So when we read Kecharitomene we don't say,"Ah HAH! See there?" Rather we say,"And HOW!" (Always provided that where I say "we" I mean "moiself".)

As to works and merit and grace and all the rest of it: It just occurred to me that we've been dealing with this question since St. Paul. For about a quarter of that time, some Protestants have commandeered the conversation and set the terms of discourse. And the Calflicks, with wonted stubbornness, have lifted the hems of our skirts and said that we weren't going to play in THAT mud, not like THAT!

SO maybe we need to back off and reconsider the conversation a bit.

And my contribution is something like this. Today Owing to Amtrak being, well, like Amtrak often is, I am going to drive my wife and daughter 300 miles into Maryland to my in-laws, and turn around and come back. (The funeral arrangements have not yet been made.)I am going to work hard. I do not think I would get to be with the wife and kid and the in-laws, or to see beautiful Maryland on this lovely day if I did not work hard in this way.

But I don't think I'm responsible of my family or the scenery, and I categorically refuse to take responsibility for Maryland. Family, sights, the rest ... all gifts. Even the desire to spend time with them and the willingness to suffer all the ill-effects of sitting down for however many gazillion miles ... all gifts. I pity the father who does not want to do such things and I consider myself lucky, indeed 'gifted', even to want, much less to be able, to do them.

EVERY good gift comes from God, every single one, including the enjoyment, the desire, the use, the embrace, and the gratitude. It's all gift, all of it. Or, perhaps better, it's all giving like a dance where a jewel is handed from dancer to dancer.

Now within that over-arching structure of "grace upon grace" there are some graces which operate, so to speak, through my will. Our Lady said, "Fiat," and what happened in response was not caused or earned by her saying so, and in any event her saying so was yet another sign and operation of the grace with which she so wonderfully endowed. I grumble, "Well, if the train is 5 hours late, I can drive you." But the joy and happiness, the deepening of family ties is entirely out of proportion to my consent, and even my consent was given with my sleep-ridden pre-coffee mind and will and I wouldn't dream of taking credit.

The preceding mess is what I being to the table of the merit and grace conversation. Because I am comfortable with paradox, I like to say that even the merit is a grace.

[Mad Dawg]

I know I have no authority based on my record for saying this, but can we play nice?

"You're a hertic," "You're another," "Am not," "Are too," is this going to bring peace and end heavy metal?

[Mad Dawg]

I hate to acknowledge it, but not every Calflick is as theologically orthodox as I am. But the existence of people who abuse a good doctrine is no more of a disproof of the doctrine than the plague of obesity is an argument that we should give up eating.

In other words, if we stipulate that there are even entire congregations who have gone overboard into some Mother cult, it will have no bearing on the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon.

Yet again: Anorexia nervosa isn't obesity, but neither is it a cure for obesity, and neither obesity nor anorexia nervosa mean that we should all start taking our food by NG tube.

[bornacatholic]

There is a rule in FR that one does not bring arguments from one thread to another.

Let's unite around that rule...

[Jaded]

What church? Name it.

[Jaded]

May God bless you in your journey.

Welcome home!

[Jaded]

Statistics show that 60% or more of Protestants don't believe in the virgin birth. I heard this recently from an associate pastor of First Baptist-Houston.

[Blogger]

Very rarely (aside from one particular section where I was trying to get someone to clarify a statement where they said that God the Word has no flesh, and I said they were skirting the edges ofMonophysitism and Docetism) have I thrown out the heresy charge in my conversations. I'm trying to make my statements and back them up with Scripture. Thus far, I've been called Arian (despite my explicit referral to the eternal preexistence of Jesus as God and third person of the trinity; a Nestorian despite my explicit reference to believing in two natures in union in one person who is 100% God and 100% Man, a Sabellian, and who knows what else. Now, it appears they just want to say "heretic" because they like saying it. Oh well).

I'm willing to play nice, but folks have to be willing to listen to what you actually say rather than what they want to think you said.