HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

Day 234: January 01

Holy Mother of God



January 1 was the feast of the "Circumcision of the Lord", now it is a feast of Mary. The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, is the first Marian feast to appear in the Western Church.

The "Natale Sanctae Mariae" began to be celebrated in Rome around the sixth century, probably in conjunction with the dedication of one of the first Marian churches in Rome: Santa Maria Antiqua al Foro Romano, south of the church of the Beavers.

The liturgy was linked to that of Christmas and the first of January was called "in octava Domini": in memory of the rite performed eight days after the birth of Jesus, the Gospel of circumcision was proclaimed, which also gave its name to the feast that inaugurated the new year. Liturgically, the feast was instituted by Pius XI, in 1931, in memory of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus, fixing the celebration on October 11, the day on which the dogma was proclaimed in 431. With the liturgical reform of 1969, however, the Church brought the feast back to January 1, as a wish for the good of every man and a model for every Christian; a celebration that also concludes the octave of Christmas. The feast had solemnly sanctioned a truth so dear to the Christian people: Mary is the true Mother of Christ, who is the true Son of God.

The only ascertained case in history, that a creature is venerated as the "Mother of God", seems to be the one proposed by the Christian Church, which declares the proposition to be a truth of faith: the Virgin Mary is "Mother of God". The dogmatic declaration dates back to 431, with the Council of Ephesus affirming that in Christ the human and divine nature in the one person of the Word of God, and, consequently, Mary as Mother of Christ is also the Mother of God: Theotokos (from Theos: God and tikto: to give birth; She who gives birth to God; in Latin: Deipara (Deus: God and para: to give birth). As the Mother of God-Man, she can also be said (Dei Genitrix: Mother of God) by virtue of the principle of communicatio idiomatum "communication of idioms".

Communicatio Idiomatum, is a technical expression born in the context of the theology of the incarnation. Its meaning is that the properties of the Divine Word can be attributed to the Christ-man and that the properties of the Christ-man can be predicated of the Word. The language of Scripture and the Fathers of the Church shows how such a mutual interchange of predicates is legitimate. However, it is not absolute and its "rules" and applications have been discussed in theology. In ordinary language all the properties of a subject are predictable of his person, consequently the properties of the two natures of Christ must be predicated of His one person, since they have only one preaching subject. He who is the Word of God, because of his eternal generation, is also the subject of human property and He who is the man Christ, having assumed human nature, is the subject of the divine attributes. Christ is God. The question of communicatio idiomatum, because of the importance of the matter, provoked the convocation of one of the first ecumenical councils, that of Ephesus, held in 431.

The Italian translation of "Mother of God", in itself, even if it is common, does not render either the Greek or the Latin text well, indeed, it could give rise to some difficulties, if one is not careful enough. The imprecision is due to the fact that in the Italian language, the term "mother" normally indicates the one who generates, i.e. the one from whom the child originates; instead, the two classical terms – Greek and Latin – indicate only the one who gave birth. A delicate distinction that introduces the mystery: Mary gave birth, in "human flesh", to the Word, the second person of the Trinity.

Theologically speaking, then, the Dogma is more Christological than Marian in nature, in the sense that it asserts something less about Mary than about Christ. The purpose of the dogma, in fact, is to clarify the relationship of the two natures of Christ, as reflected in the historical climate of the definition of Ephesus. The mystery of the Incarnation consists precisely in this: Christ has two natures, Divine and Human and one Person, that of the Word. The two natures are in perfect union in the Person of Christ and are not separate. Christ is then at the same time true God (Nature and Person of the Word) and true Man (only Human Nature without Human Person).

In fact, it was not easy to accept the term Mother of God that during the Council of Ephesus, Nestorius made an objection and dared to declare: "Does God have a mother, then? Then let us not condemn Greek mythology, which attributes a mother to the gods." St Cyril of Alexandria, however, had replied: "It will be said: Is the Virgin the mother of divinity? To which we answer: the living, subsistent Word was begotten from the very substance of God the Father, exists from all eternity... But in time he became flesh, so it can be said that he was born of woman."

Jesus, the Son of God, was born of Mary. It is from this sublime and exclusive prerogative that all the titles of honor that we attribute to her derive to the Blessed Virgin, even if we can make a distinction between Mary's personal holiness and her divine motherhood suggested by Christ himself: "A woman raised her voice from the crowd and said, 'Blessed is the belly that bore you and the breast from which you took milk!' But he said, "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!" (Lk 11:27ff.).

In fact, "Mary, daughter of Adam, consenting to the divine word, became the mother of Jesus and, embracing God's saving will with all her soul and without any burden of sin, consecrated herself totally as the Handmaid of the Lord to the person and work of his Son, serving the mystery of redemption under him and with him, by the grace of Almighty God" (Lumen Gentium, 56).


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"O Mary, I would like to unite myself entirely to you with all the relationships with which is connected every work, every Saint, every Angel, every grace and Saint Joseph, in order to unite myself to the Divine Relationships that exist between You and the Diviner Persons."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 144)

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