Mary, Theotokos, Mother of God

The Solemnity of the Mary, Mother of God, celebrates the decision taken at the Council of Ephesus (431) against the teaching of the Patriarch, Nestorius, who held that a human person could not be said to have given birth to God. The Patriarch of Alexander, Cyril, argued that Mary, as the chosen instrument of the Incarnation, conceived and gave birth to the Word, Jesus, fully human and fully divine, one person with two natures. Mary, then, is properly understood to be “Theotokos,” God-bearer.

Cyril wrote (in part) to Nestorius:

"And since the holy Virgin brought forth corporally God made one with flesh according to nature, for this reason we also call her Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh.

For In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and he is the Maker of the ages, coeternal with the Father, and Creator of all; but, as we have already said, since he united to himself hypostatically human nature from her womb, also he subjected himself to birth as man, not as needing necessarily in his own nature birth in time and in these last times of the world, but in order that he might bless the beginning of our existence, and that that which sent the earthly bodies of our whole race to death, might lose its power for the future by his being born of a woman in the flesh. And this: In sorrow you shall bring forth children, being removed through him, he showed the truth of that spoken by the prophet, Strong death swallowed them up, and again God has wiped away every tear from off all faces. For this cause also we say that he attended, having been called, and also blessed, the marriage in Cana of Galilee, with his holy Apostles in accordance with the economy. We have been taught to hold these things by the holy Apostles and Evangelists, and all the God-inspired Scriptures, and in the true confessions of the blessed Fathers."

Cryril published twelve anathemas against Nestorius. Cyril's letters and his anathemas became the primary texts from which the council fathers drew up their canons for the council.

The first anathema reads: “If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Θεοτόκος), inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is written, The Word was made flesh] let him be anathema.”

The fifth anathema reads: “If anyone shall dare to say that the Christ is a Theophorus [that is, God-bearing] man and not rather that he is very God, as an only Son through nature, because the Word was made flesh, and has a share in flesh and blood as we do: let him be anathema.”

As is the case with all Marian dogma and doctrine, we are immediately directed back to Christ as our Lord and Savior. No Marian dogma or doctrine is declared or defined in isolation from Christ. She is always understood to be an exemplar of the Church and a sign through which we come to a more perfect union with Christ. Though our Blessed Mother is rightly revered and venerated, she is never worshiped as if she were divine. She is rightly understood as the Mediatrix of All Graces in so far as she mediated, through her own body, the conception and birth of Christ, who is Grace Himself. In no sense are we to understand our Blessed Mother as the source of grace. Rather, she was and is a conduit through which we benefit from the only mediation between God and man, Christ. In her immaculate conception and assumption into heaven, our Blessed Mother is herself a beneficiary of Christ's grace. As such, she cannot be the source of our blessedness, our giftedness in Christ.

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Becoming a Child of God

NB. from 2012. . .

Solemnity of the Lord's Nativity (Day)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

We start: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth—and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters—Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light.” Let there be day and night; let there be water above and water below; let be sky and earth; beasts wild and tame, birds, and crawling things; and let there be Man, male and female, created in the image and likeness of their Creator. With God, at the beginning, when He created everything that is, was the Word, and “all things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.” It is this Word-at-the-beginning that we come together this morning to honor, adore, and welcome. Not the Word in majesty and splendor; not the Word in his brilliant glory, but the Word-given-flesh: the child, Jesus Christ, the infant son of Joseph and Mary. His birth among us reveals a narrow path, a way and a means back to God's glory and truth. To those who receive him he gives power to become children of God. 

We honor, adore, and welcome Christ-dwelling-us; we accept and receive him as Lord so that we may become children of God. Of all the ways available to God to make us into His children, why did He choose to send His only-begotten Son among us as a child? The complete answer to this question won't be available to us until we see God face-to-face; however, our Holy Father, Benedict, gives us a glimpse, a partial answer. In his Midnight Mass homily in Rome yesterday, the Holy Father said, “. . .it astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we may dare to love him. . .It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you. . .So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me.” We must remember that the incarnation of the Son was not the first time that God had tried to bring His human creatures back to Him. He appeared in glory to Moses. He guided His people out of slavery in Egypt as a pillar of fire and a pillar of smoke. He sent one prophet after another to accuse His people of spiritual adultery and injustice and preach repentance. He sent the Law and demanded obedience. And over and over again, His people misheard, misread, disobeyed, rebelled. And over and over again, He forgave them and restored them to His grace. What we needed was a permanent solution. 

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews notes this turbulent history and points to just such a solution: “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son. . .” All that had been revealed by God before the birth of the Christ is partial, incomplete. Just quick glimpses behind the veil that separates the Creator from His creation. With imperfect knowledge, and using broken human nature, we were unable to come fully back to God, unable to achieve—even with the help of the Law and the Prophets—we were unable to attain the perfection we were made to enjoy. Having willed that we once again enjoy the original justice of the Garden, God saw that it would be good for us to have perfect knowledge of His plan and a mended human nature to use this knowledge. To achieve this, He made the unique and final revelation of His plan for our salvation into a flesh and bone human child. Not only would this child show us the way back to God, he would be the way back, the only way back to our Eden. The key to His plan is the Christ Child and the virginal teenaged girl who gave him birth. 

What does the Christ Child reveal to us? John writes, “From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” From the fullness of Christ—from this one divine person with two natures: one human, one divine—from his fullness, we have been given one gift upon another, one grace after another. We have been given perfect human knowledge of God's plan for our salvation from sin and death. We have been given a map to follow along the Way. We have been given the Truth of this world and our place in the world to come. We have been given Life and life eternal. And we have been given all this for no reason than that God loves us as His children and wills that we live with Him forever. All there is to do is to freely receive all that He has freely given and then dwell as Christ does among the living and the dead. To make our reception of these gifts both fearless and complete, God sent His only-begotten Son to live among us as one of us. And he gifted us with a Blessed Mother who bears us up to His throne as one of her own to commend to us to His mercy. Christ and his mother bring into this world the unique and final revelation of God. 

We start again: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . .All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.” His light shines in the darkness of sin and death, showing all who choose to see a Way to Truth and Life. For those who choose to see, and in seeing choose to follow, he makes a promise of life eternal. And so, we gather here this morning to honor, adore, and welcome him among us as one of us. And in eating his body and drinking his blood, we pledge ourselves to leave this place, taking him out into the world as a wonder and a revelation. God the Father through the Holy Spirit placed the Son in the virginal womb of Mary. She is our mother and our model when she says to Gabriel, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” Leave this place then with your heart and mind left open to her example; leave here knowing, feeling, and believing that God loves you and wants you to live with Him forever. Leave here with the Blessed Mother's surrender resounding in your body and soul. And come back—again and again—to give Him thanks for His Christ, to give Him praise for His plan to bring you home.

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Scandal? Rejoice! Despair? Rejoice!

3^rd Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

After so many months of bad news for the national and international Church, it's about time we rehearse some of the basics of the faith. I don't mean basic doctrines or moral precepts but the even more fundamental attitudes and dispositions that our status as heirs to the Kingdom should provoke in us. Even as we contend with scandal, betrayal, persecution, and trial, our best hope for surviving and growing in holiness is to remain joyful. Paul writes to the Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! [. . .] The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all. . .” What is there to rejoice about? Is Paul aware of what's being going in the Church lately? Does he know about the confusion, the secrets, the backstabbing and abuse? Does he know about the declining number of regular Mass-goers? Doesn't he know we have a priest shortage and that the number of sisters and nuns are in a free-fall? No, he doesn't. He wrote to the Philippians from prison while under the threat of the death penalty for preaching Christ. From prison. Preparing to die. For preaching Christ. Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! The Lord is near!”

Why should we rejoice in the middle of this mess? Because the Lord is near. He's near to being born on Christmas Day, and he is near to coming again as our Just Judge, and he is near to us in the Blessed Sacrament, and he is near in one another as the Church. He is never far away. And we rejoice b/c – whatever the world throws our way, whatever disaster we face – we are his brothers and sisters, heirs to the Father's Kingdom. The proper attitude toward our situation –whatever that situation might be – is always joyfulness. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that joy is an effect of love. When one loves the result is joy. To experience joy and share that joy is a sign not only that we are loved but also that we love in turn. And I want to be clear here: I'm not talking about love and joy in worldly terms – warm fuzzies and butterflies and being goofy and giggly all the time. When we love, truly love, we love within the Love Who is God Himself. We participate in the divine nature of God Who is Love. Our joy, then, is what happens when we love as God loves us. Sometimes divine love looks like the creation of the universe. Sometimes it looks like Christ on a cross. What's the effect? Joy. Our joy at being saved from the darkness of sin and eternal death.

When Paul tells the Philippians to rejoice and to rejoice always, he also tells them to pray with thanksgiving “so that the peace of God that surpasses all understanding [may] guard [our] hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” What are our hearts and minds being guarded against? Anxiety. Hopeless expectation. Despair. Praying in thanksgiving guards against those attitudes and dispositions that lead us to surrender our inheritance in exchange for. . .well, nothing. Nothing at all. Is your place at the Wedding Feast worth a life of anger? A life of disappointment and despair? The third Sunday of Advent serves as the Church's way of bringing our hearts and minds back to their most basic orientation: we are heirs, children, brothers and sisters, and nothing this world – or anyone in the Church – can do anything to change that. . .if we rejoice and rejoice always! So long as there is joy, there is love causing that joy. And whatever scandal or deception or crime that pops up must be seen through the eyes of joy. This too will pass. But God's love and our joy never will. We can thwart the Devil by giving God thanks for our trials. Has there been a perfect time for us to practice forgiveness? To show the world God's mercy? To love radically in the face of the Devil's best efforts to tempt us into self-righteous anger and despair?

God's prophet, Zephaniah, says, “The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior; he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, he will sing joyfully because of you. . .” God is with us. He rejoices at our rejoicing. And He sings joyfully b/c we belong to Him. Nothing and no one can spoil this joy. Nothing and no one can turn our joy into mourning. As we wait on the Christ Child at Christmas and the Just Judge at the end of the age, we pray with thanksgiving; we ask and we receive; we rejoice and we love. And we sing with Psalmist: “I am confident and unafraid. My strength and my courage is the Lord!”

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