Dear Christ the King Family,
January 1 is the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. I’ve often heard Catholic satires poking fun at our long titles. For example, a movie might characterize a Catholic school girl as “Mary Catherine Mcquire McGillicoughty”. Or a fictional order of nuns as the Sisters of the Most Holy Blessed Trinity of the Perpetual Light of Jesus, the Son of God.”
There is a nugget of truth to these silly satires: there is a high level of importance in titles that we as Catholics use, and sometimes they are long, but they have deep meaning. Take for example the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. It is an important title that the Church gives to Mary that leads us to a deeper understanding of who she is and it is really two titles in one. Why are these important?
The two titles used in this Solemnity give us an insight, not just into who Mary is, but an insight into who Jesus is. It is also a reminder of a Church teaching about Mary: to Jesus, through Mary. When the Church uses the title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, She is claiming that a miraculous conception and birth took place, one that could only mean that there was a supernatural event that took place. The teaching of Mary’s perpetual virginity is one of the longest defined dogmas of the Church. It was taught by the earliest Church Fathers, including: Tertullian, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine. And it was officially declared a dogma at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 553 A.D. That declaration called Mary “ever-virgin.” This special title is the guarantor of both Jesus’ divinity and Jesus’ humanity. It safeguards the truth that he was both fully God and fully man.
What about the title “the Mother of God”, or “Theotokos”? This title just makes sense but once again, it helps lead us to the truth about Jesus: that He is both fully God and fully human. The title Theotokos is a Greek word that means Birth-giver to God, Mother of God, or God-bearer. As a title for Mary, Theotokos was recognized by the Church at the Third Ecumenical Council in AD 431. Theotokos had already been in use for some time in the devotional and liturgical life of the Church; the Council merely affirmed its use in its battle against the heresies of Nestorius, who insisted on calling the Virgin Mary Christotokos (“birth-giver of Christ”) instead. He claimed that Mary was the mother of Christ’s human nature but not the mother of God and concluded that only Jesus the man suffered and died on the cross. The Church upheld that Jesus is fully God and fully man and that His two natures (human and divine) were united in one Person. This distinction is important because of Christ’s sacrificial act of love in the Paschal Mystery: his passion, death and resurrection, an act that was made by Jesus, fully God and fully human. God, through the incarnation and the person of Jesus, is personal and relatable because of both natures, not just His humanity. God knows what it is like to feel physical and emotional pain, cold and heat, sadness and joy. He knows the difficulty of suffering.
The title, Mother of God, is vital to our spiritual life. Mary, who “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart”, (Luke 2:19) is something as a parent or parent figure we can all relate to. The mysteries of raising a child run deep. She was the mother of a baby who developed into a young man with all of the ups and downs that go with motherhood. Yet, more mysteriously, she was the mother of God, the mother of the God of hope, who blesses us and lets his face shine on us and who is gracious to us (Number 6:24). Because of her conformity to God’s will, we are now God’s adopted sons and daughters (Gal 4:7) and Mary is not only the Mother of God, but the mother of us all. Yes, titles, even long ones, have meaning and importance.
Happy Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God!
Teresa Oross
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