The Mother of God
Gospel Reflection for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
“The Shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.” Luke 2:16
Today is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. This feast celebrates the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It falls on the 8th day of the Octave of Christmas intentionally since it is because of the Virgin that the Incarnate Christ came among us for our salvation. In a way, we can view this Octave as beginning with Christ at His Nativity and ending with the Maternity of His mother on January 1st.
The Gospel today is a witness to this relationship between the Mother and the Son. After the revelation of the Angels, the shepherds go “in haste” to find the newborn Messiah. When they enter the cave in which He was born, they specifically find the Child with Mary and Joseph. This verse recognizes the connection between the Child and His parents, particularly Mary, who is listed first in Luke’s Gospel. The revelation of the Child cannot be known apart from His mother. As it was then, so it is now. This is why we celebrate this Solemnity in such close proximity to Christmas.
In the fifth century, a heresy arose in the East called Nestorianism. Interestingly, it formally began on Christmas Day in 4281 when Nestorius, the Bishop of Constantinople, denied that Mary was the Mother of God. In his sermon that day, Nestorius preached:
“They ask whether Mary may be called God-Bearer. But has God, then, a mother?... Mary did not bear God… the creature did not bear the Creator, but the man, who is the instrument of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit did not place the Word, but He provided for Him, from the Blessed Virgin, a temple which He might inhabit… He who was formed in the womb of Mary was not God Himself, but God assumed him.”2
We can read the essence of Nestorianism here. While it is first a heresy concerning Christ and His person, it extends to the Blessed Virgin. Without fail, whenever we are in error concerning the Son, we will also be in error concerning the Mother. Nestorius fell into error and then heresy by denying to Christ the unity of His person. He sought to “protect” the creator from being subject to the creature by saying that he who was conceived in the Virgin’s womb was not God but only human. Thereafter, the Word assumed this man. What Nestorius did was essentially confess two sons, one human: the son of Mary, and one divine: The Logos, the Son of God. In his system, the two sons would somehow come together though remain distinct. This means that Mary was not the Mother of God but simply the Mother of Christ. Thus, Nestorius put forward the term Christotokos (Christ Bearer) instead of the more appropriate Theotokos (God-Bearer) which had been used for the better part of 150 years, especially in the Alexandrian Church.
This heresy is ultimately condemned in 431 at the Council of Ephesus, the third Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church. It is here that the theological framework for the Hypostatic Union is laid down by the great St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Dogma of the Divine Maternity, that is Mary as the Mother of God, is formally defined. Taking from the letters sent from Cyril to Nestorius, the Council declares:
“If anyone does not confess that the Emmanuel is truly God and for this reason, the holy Virgin is the Mother of God (since she begot, according to the flesh, the Word of God made flesh), let him be anathema.
If anyone does not confess that the Word from God the Father was united to the flesh hypostatically and that He is one sole Christ with His own flesh, namely the same at once both God and man, let him be anathema.”3
These anathemas give us the correct understanding of both the person of Christ and His relationship to His mother. Our Blessed Lord is one person who possesses two natures, one divine and one human. There was only one person conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin at the Annunciation. This one person was the Word of God who assumed a human nature. He DID NOT assume a second person who happened to be human. There are not two sons. There is one son who is both born of the Father before all ages and who was born according to the flesh of the Virgin Mary in the fullness of time.
Why is this important? Today we have many affirming this old heresy in an attempt to reduce the role that the Blessed Virgin has in the History of Salvation. Many these days will say that Mary is the Mother of the humanity of Christ, but she is not the mother of God since God has no mother! Who does that sound like? It is Nestorianism resurrected. The modern-day Christians who wish to deny Mary the Divine Maternity, inadvertently do the same thing that Nestorius did 1600 years ago. They divide the person of Christ into two and say only the human person was born of Mary. By that, they seek to reduce her so as to prove that she does not deserve the veneration that we give her.
Contrary to this, the Church exalts the Mother who has brought forth God in the flesh for our salvation. Through this, we can call her the Theotokos and the Dawn of Redemption.
On this Solemnity of Mary’s Divine Maternity, let us exalt the Mother as it is in exalting the Mother that we also exalt the Son who chose so lovingly to be born of her.
Warren H. Carroll, The Building of Christendom: A History of Christendom Vol. 2, 92.
Ibid.
Council of Ephesus, Third Letter of Cyril to Nestorius, DH 252-253.