"Theotokos" sums up all that Mary is

Insight Scoop ^ | December 15, 2007 | Carl E. Olson

[NYer]

God has a mother and she was chosen before the beginning of time.

This is an amazing belief, one that is sometimes mocked and often misunderstood, and misrepresented, sometimes even by Catholics. Yet this truth is at the heart of Advent and Christmas–as well as at the heart of the entire Christian Faith.

This belief is also captured in a short phrase in the Hail Mary: "Holy Mary, Mother of God." They are just five simple words, but words bursting with mystery and meaning. They tell us many things about Mary and about the Triune God and His loving plan of salvation for mankind, in which Mary has such a significant place.

Mary is holy. To be holy is to be set apart, to be pure, and to be filled with the life of God. The call to holiness, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, is summarized in Jesus' words: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48; CCC 2013). Mary's holiness comes from the same source as the holiness that fills all who are baptized and are in a state of race. But Mary's relationship with the Triune God is unique, as Luke makes evident in his description of Gabriel appearing to Mary:

And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God" (Lk 1:35)

Possessing perfect faith, itself a gift from God, Mary was overshadowed by God the Father, anointed by the Holy Spirit, and filled by the Son. She was chosen by God to bear the God-man, the One in whom the "whole fullness of deity" would dwell (CCC 484). Completely filled by God, she is completely holy. Chosen by God, she is saved. Called to share intimately and eternally in the life of her Son, she was, the Catechism explains, "redeemed from the moment of her conception" (CCC 49) and "preserved from the stain of original sin" (CCC 508).

The Pentateuch contains the account of how God chose a small, nondescript nomadic tribe, the Hebrews, to be His "holy people" for "His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth" (Deut 7:6). Many years later, in the fullness of time, God chose a young Jewish woman from a place of little consequence to be the Mother of God. This, in turn, would result in the birth of the Church, which Peter describes as a "chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession" (1 Pet 2:9).

Mary, faithful and holy, is chosen so that others can also be chosen and made holy, transformed by her Son into the sons and daughters of God and joined to the Body of Christ. Mary "is the Virgo fidelis, the faithful virgin, who was never anything but faithful," writes Fr. Jean Daniélou, "whose fidelity was the perfect answer to the fidelity of God; she was always entirely consecrated to the one true God."

It has been said many ways and in many places but bears repeating that "Mother of God" is the greatest and most sublime title that Mary can ever be given. It sums up all that she is, all that she does, and all that she desires. The title of Theotokos ("God-bearer", or "Mother of God"), far from being some late addition to Church teaching, is rooted in Scripture and the Advent story. The Catechism explains that Mary was "called in the Gospels 'the mother of Jesus'" and that she "is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as 'the mother of my Lord'" (CCC 495).

Mary, the Mother of God, is also the first disciple of her Son, the God-man. She is also the New Eve, whose obedience and gift of her entire being overturns the sin and rebellion of the first Eve. Her Son is the New Adam, who comes to give everlasting, supernatural life and heal the mortal wound inflicted by the sin of the first Adam (cf. 1 Cor 15:45).

The lives and the love of the New Adam and the New Eve fill the season of Advent. Mary quietly and patiently calls all men to Bethlehem to see and worship the Christ Child. Jesus waits for mankind to recognize Him as Lord and Savior. But He doesn't just wait for us; He comes to us. But His coming awaits completion, both in our individual lives and in the life of the world. Which is why James, in today's epistle, writes, " Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. . . . . You too must be patient. Make your hearts firm,because the coming of the Lord is at hand" (Jas 5:7-10).

Fr. Daniélou explains beautifully this paradox of Advent, of Jesus having come already and yet coming still:

"We live always during Advent, we are always waiting for the Messiah to come. He has come, but is not yet fully manifest. He is not fully manifest in each of our souls; He is not fully manifest in mankind as a whole; that is to say, that just as Christ was born according to the flesh in Bethlehem of Judea so must He be born according to the spirit in each of our souls."

Although young, poor, and faced with incredible challenges, Mary waited patiently on the promises and the coming of her Lord and Son. The Catechism says that because Mary "gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: 'Let it be to me according to your word.' By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: 'Thy will be done.'" (CCC 2677). That is indeed the perfect prayer, from the perfect woman and mother, for Advent: "Thy will be done."

---

God’s grace redeems the Virgin

The Church recently celebrated the great Feast of the Immaculate Conception, situated to draw Catholics more deeply into the mystery of God's grace, Mary's faith, and the plan of salvation. Although not formally defined as a doctrine of the Catholic Church until 1854 by Pope Pius IX, belief in Mary's sinlessness goes back to the earliest centuries of the Church and is rooted in Scripture, especially the first chapter of Luke's Gospel.

In the encyclical Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX formally stated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception:

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. [135 Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854); CCC 491]

Although the Eastern Orthodox recognize and celebrate Mary's sinlessness, many Protestants do not. Some, in fact, take great offense with this belief, insisting that it makes light of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, and that it implies that Mary is more than a creature, perhaps even equal to her Son.

But the Church makes very clear that Mary's Immaculate Conception is a gift of God. After all, Mary was "redeemed from the moment of her conception," making it difficult for her redemption to be her own work. And Pope Pius IX's definition strongly states that the Immaculate Conception was "by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God" and by the work and merits of Mary's Son. Sadly, some Christians not only reject this truth, they even resort of saying that Mary "not special" or "not worthy of praise"–even though Mary, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared that "from this time on all generations will count me blessed" (Lk 1:48).

John Cardinal Newman once noted that Catholic beliefs about Jesus and His Mother are intimately connected and cannot be torn apart from one another. "Catholics who have honoured the Mother, still worship the Son," he wrote, "while Protestants, who now have ceased to confess the Son, began . . . by scoffing at the Mother." It is a cautionary statement that all Christians, including Catholics, should take to heart during the Advent season.

[Campion]

Also, why would a woman who is sinless need a savior as she declares in Luke 1:47? What does she need saving from?

You have it backwards. Her savior is the one who made her sinless, and him making her that way is part and parcel of how she was saved.

[diamond6]

Absolutely beautiful... gave me goosebumps. I’ve read from the account re: the apparition of the Our Lady of Confidence, one of her favorite titles to be given and addressed is “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary”.

[diamond6]

What you said brings to mind what Our Lady said with Jesus..... years after the Fatima apparition re: the First Five Saturdays in reparation of insults and blasphemies against his Holy mother. It is very eloquently explained in this thread....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1828889/posts

[Rutles4Ever]

Does Col 3:16 mean anything to you?

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God."

What does this have to do with compiling a Biblical canon? This is a description of oral tradition.

You follow the Bible exclusively, but its very existence is unbiblical. Since Jesus didn't tell anyone to compile the New Testament, how do you prove the books are inspired?

[Rutles4Ever]

your analogy doesnt hold, because the Ark was a type of Christ, not a type of Mary.

How so? The Ark contained the presence of God. Are you saying that God contained Himself? I don't understand.

[Rutles4Ever]

Mary never sinned. Not once. By virtue of being spared of Original Sin, she did not have our concupiscence. Therefore, she could never incline her will anywhere but to God.

[Kolokotronis]

"Mary never sinned. Not once. By virtue of being spared of Original Sin, she did not have our concupiscence. Therefore, she could never incline her will anywhere but to God."

+John Chrysostomos said she did indeed sin. Several other Fathers did also yet none of them, not one, ever said she wasn't the Most Holy Theotokos and "Αει Παρθενος". Now how does one account for that, R4E? No belief at all in Original Sin, an actual belief that she did indeed sin, yet a equally strong belief that she was the Theotokos. It would seem, RFE that neither perpetual sinlessness nor the IC is required for that dogmatic belief. Beyond that, are you aware of any Father, East or West, except maybe Augustine, who maintained that Panagia could not incline her will elsewhere than towards God?

[Salvation]

Vultus Christi

A Mother Ever-Virgin

O SAPIENTIA

Genesis 49:2, 8-10
Psalm 71: 1-2, 3-4ab, 7-8, 17
Matthew 1:1-17

The Wondrous Exchange

O God, Creator and Redeemer of human nature,
who willed that your Word should take flesh
in the womb of a mother ever-virgin,
look graciously upon our prayers,
that your only-begotten Son,
having taken our humanity to Himself,
may deign to make us partakers of His divinity.

The first Collect of the seven-day preparation for Christmas englobes the whole magnificent plan of the Incarnation and Redemption. It goes straight to the heart of the mystery: God, having taken our humanity to Himself in the womb of a virgin, makes us partakers of His divinity.

Partakers of His Divinity

We already hear today what we will pray in the Collect of the Mass of Christmas Day:

O God, who in a wonderful manner
created the dignity of human nature,
and still more wonderfully renewed it;
grant that we may be made partakers of His divinity
who deigned to become partaker of our humanity.

This same prayer is echoed in every Mass at the preparation of the chalice. The priest, adding water to the wine, says silently:

By the mystery of this water and wine
may we be made partakers in His divinity
who deigned to share in our humanity.

Admiration in the Face of the Mystery

There is still more. At Vespers on January 1st, Solemnity of the Mother of God, we will sing an antiphon that, by happily wedding the “O” of admiration to a few well chosen notes in the sixth mode, expresses our amazement in the face of the mystery:

O wondrous exchange!
The Creator of mankind, having assumed a living body,
deigned to be born of a Virgin,
and having become man without man’s aid,
enriched us with His divinity.

What we are hearing in today’s Collect can be compared to the overture of a symphony in which are heard all the musical themes that will be developed in successive movements.

Today we address God as “Creator and Redeemer of human nature.” Our humanity created by God, is redeemed by God. He redeems our humanity, not by acting upon it from the infinite distance of His throne in heaven, but by spanning that infinite distance, by closing the gap, by taking flesh in the womb of the Virgin. In the Te Deum we sing, “Thou, when taking upon Thee to deliver man, didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb.” Concerning this verse of the Te Deum, an ancient ceremonial for the Divine Office reads: “Here ye incline in token and in reverence of Our Lord’s coming down to be Man.”

Perpetual Virginity

Today’s Collect says literally that God decreed the enfleshment of His Word in “the womb of perpetual virginity,” in utero perpetuae virginitatis. Ever since the Council of Ephesus in 431, icons of the Mother of God have been marked by three stars: one on her forehead, and one on each shoulder, The three stars signify her perpetual virginity: before, during, and after the birth of her Son.

Sancta Dei Genetrix

Today’s Collect does not call Mary by name. The Collects of December 19th and 20th will call her “holy Virgin,” and “immaculate Virgin,” but only in the Collect of December 23rd, for the first and last time in Advent, will we hear her called by her own name, “Virgin Mary.” Ancient liturgical texts reflect the language of the first great Christological councils of the Church. It was crucial, in the context of the prevailing heresies, to invoke Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God, or as Ever-Virgin. It was feared that by referring to Mary as a woman called simply by her ordinary name, something of the mystery of Christ, True God and True Man, might be obscured or compromised. The liturgy in both East and West reflects this ancient preference. While, in preaching and in works of devotion, we often hear the name of Mary without her theological titles, the liturgy calls her Sancta Dei Genetrix (Holy God-bearer) and Semper Virgo (Ever-Virgin).

The most ancient prayer to the Virgin Mother is the Sub tuum praesidium, found on an Egyptian papyrus from the 3rd century. It does not include the name “Mary,” but invokes her as Holy God-bearer (Sancta Dei Genetrix) and Virgin glorious and blessed, (Virgo gloriosa et benedicta).

Virginal Motherhood

The liturgy through the ages is consistent in confessing that God Himself is the author of Mary’s perpetual virginity. The same thought is carried over into the ancient rites for the Consecration of Virgins. Virginity, before being something offered to God, is a gift received from Him. It is a gift wholly ordered to union with Christ. Christ is the Spouse of Virgins; He is, at the same time, the blessed Fruit of a virginity received from God and offered back to Him. The liturgy does not separate virginity from motherhood. The virginity given by God is characterized not by sterility, but by an astonishing fecundity.

The Veil, the Ring, and the Crown

Reflecting in June 1928 on the rite for the Consecration of Virgins, Suzanne Wrotnowska, being twenty-six years old at the time, revealed her insight into this very mystery. She treats of three signs that the Church confers on the consecrated virgin: the veil, the ring, and the crown. “This crown,” she writes, “is the crown of a bride and the crown of a mother because the consecrated virgin, if she is faithful, must give birth to the supernatural life of many souls.”

Mary of Nazareth, secretly prompted by the Holy Spirit, offered her poverty and virginal emptiness to God. Wisdom descended from heaven, filling her with an indescribable sweetness: the wedding of God with the human nature He created.

The Descent of Wisdom

Of ourselves and by ourselves we have nothing to offer, nothing to give, apart from the poverty and emptiness that are all God wants from us. On this first day of the Great O Antiphons, with our eyes fixed on the Ever-Virgin Mother, we open ourselves to the gift that God would offer us. Expect the descent of Wisdom. He comes bearing a crown for each of us. Blessed the one who inclines beneath His hand to receive it.

[TradicalRC]

Knock and the door shall be opened:

The one in blue to the left of the cross is Mary, Mother of God.

[Kolokotronis]

“OTOH, Our Lord is ontologically incapable of sin, because He is God and God cannot be the subject of the verb “to sin”, more-or-less by definition.”

Good; just what apophatic theology would conclude.

“It was indeed “an exercise of her free will in responding to God” and a perfect response to His grace.”

So far so good! :)

“She was preserved from some of the effects of original sin (concupiscence), making that perfect response easier for her than it is for us.”

Oops, there’s that ontological difference stuff again. You do understand, C, that without the Augustinian notion of Original Sin, there is simply no, none, nada, reason for the IC...a non-patristic problem necessitating a non-patristic solution which in turn appears to endorse a very ancient Christological heresy.

In the end, C, even if it does not inevitably lead to heresy, the IC adds absolutely nothing to The Faith, as the devotion of the Orthodox to The Most Holy Theotokos (from whom the West learned that devotion) amply demonstrates.

[redgolum]

You know Kolo, you hit the nail on the head.

The term “Theotokos” is a needed one in order to preserve orthodox Christology, but the Immaculate Conception can spin things into a wrong Christology.

The argument “Jesus, as the Son of God, could not be carried by a woman who had sin (Original sin in this case)”, calls into question the whole Incarnation. For if Jesus could not have been Incarnated except in a woman free of the original taint of sin, for as God He could not be in the presence of sin, then the next logical question is this. What about the 33 or so years after His birth? Was he present in the sinful world then? Using the logic of the IC, no Christ could not have been present in the world because the world was in sin. So you end up with one of the Christlogical errors (which I can’t remember the term right now), where Jesus was not really “here” but only appeared to be.

[RobbyS]

Eve had no human progenitor.

[Rutles4Ever]

+John Chrysostomos said she did indeed sin. Several other Fathers did also yet none of them, not one, ever said she wasn't the Most Holy Theotokos and "Αει Παρθενος".

+John Chrysostom does not enjoy the infallibility of the teaching of the Magisterium. He could be correct on a lot of what he taught, but that does not imply he was correct on everything he taught. He was correct about the Theotokos, wrong on her ability to sin. Whether or not her concupiscence or lack therof is crucial to her role as Theotokos is moot. I don't believe she was the Mother of God BECAUSE she had no Original Sin. I believe she was the Mother of God because God chose her from the beginning, from the fall of Adam, and so saved her from Original Sin to prepare His gateway into the world.

Beyond that, are you aware of any Father, East or West, except maybe Augustine, who maintained that Panagia could not incline her will elsewhere than towards God?

There could be a million Fathers who say otherwise. The only guarded truth is what comes from the Magisterium. You may very well disagree with that, but there's the rub. I believe the word of Rome is final, therefore, conflicting patristics don't scandalize my belief.

[Kolokotronis]

Howdy, MD! :)

“Jesus is human.
Jesus has no trace of sin or its effects.
So one can be human without a trace of sin or its effects.
So Mary can be human without a trace of sin or its effects.”

Last time I looked, the dogma was that Christ is “True God and True Man”. Pyro and I have already had a little talk about “True Goddess and True Woman”. Not the sort of place any of you RCs, save maybe some of the Co-Redemptrix crowd, want to go, MD.

““Waking understands sleeping; sleeping does not understand waking. That is, the distorting effect of sin distorts the intellective and apprehensive faculties so that the sinner’s understanding of virtue or vice, sinlessness or sin, is not as good as that of a sinless person. Similarly, it is not necessarily that case that to have compassion for the guilty requires one to be guilty.”

OK...for now....

“Isn’t sinlessness part of the Xtian hope? Do we expect to be less human or more human “in heaven”? I’d submit that we will be more human than ever when we are finally sinless. And similarly IHS is more truly human than I am and the Panagia as proleptically benefiting from the Victory of Christ is also more truly human than I am.”

“Sinlessness” is “part of the Xtian hope” to this extent; if we arrive at a point when we have died completely to the self so that our will is so coextensive with that of God that we never “miss the mark”, then we shall have fulfilled our created purpose and I suppose you could say that we hope for that. More or less “human” when we are “in heaven”? If we arrive at a state of Theosis, we shall have fulfilled our created purpose, we shall have become both the image and the likeness of God. Is that “more human” or simply as we were intended to be? Is Christ “more human” than we? No but His human nature is as human nature was created to be. The same goes for Panagia who is in a state of perfect and complete Theosis.

“Is it an implication of your stand that sinfulness of some kind is part of the “ontos” of humanity?”

Not at all. While Augustine taught, outside the consensus patrum, that prior to the Fall Adam and Eve were in a state of perfection, the other Fathers taught that Adam and Eve were in a state of potential perfection, or Theosis or divinization. Thus, we are not ontologically “divinized” but rather we ontologically, before the Fall and since the Incarnation, have the potential to become like God.

[Rutles4Ever]

You've hit on a common error in this thread. Make no mistake - there was no reason Jesus HAD to be carried in a sinless human anymore than the tablets, manna, and Aaron's staff HAD to be carried in an opulent Ark of the Covenant. The point is, God chose to. As I stated earlier, Jesus didn't HAVE to be born of a woman, either. But He chose to. Since Jesus didn't have to be born of a woman, was it just an unnecessary sideshow on the part of God to bring Mary and Joseph into the playing out of salvation history? Heck, if we're going to keep stretching it out, God didn't have to become man at all. He could have accomplished everything He wanted to without getting crucified, if He chose to.

[RobbyS]

Your argument leave aside the unique circumstance of the Virgin Birth. Mary was his mother and so to her as well as to God owed his human character. IfJesus is true God and true man, we ought bnot to deny a special dignity to Our Lady. A King could have a child by any fertile woman, but he could only have an heir by a special woman, his Queen.

[lastchance]

Since many will use this thread to dishonor our Mother, why did you not request it be a caucus thread?

[Mad Dawg]

The only intended point of my argument was that sinning or the suffering the effects of sin are not essential to being human so that it is possiblke at least in theory forsomeone to be sinless and still "very man".

I mentioned our Lord's humanididdy only to bolster that argument against the thesis that sinlessness necessarily made our Lady somehow less human.

I would suggest that to the extent that we are, as you say (and I like) distorted, we are less than perfectly human. (Of course I don't mean moral perfection. I mean the way a sailboat which is well balanced is closer to the ontos of sailboat than one with, say a lee helm and and warped rudder.) Again, it was all to build up the sequelae and, ah penumbrae and emanations of the relationship between sinlessness and humanididdy.

Oh darn; customer, gotta go.

[Mad Dawg]

Did Adam and Eve suffer from concupiscence before the Fall?

I would have thought the absnece of concupiscence would not make sin impossilbe but would make sinning a whole lot less likely and make it easier to resist sin, on account of not being tempted in the same way and to the same degree.
Tell me more ....

[lastchance]

Mary never sinned.