![]() ![]() In a mysterious, meaning unfathomable way she required prefiguration as the one unique creature united by design not by substance to the Trinity. ![]() She was prefigured from all eternity as Mother of God and of Christ’s Mystical Body. Mary is a mystery of the divinity, not simply God’s chosen “dwelling place”. ( Note: This “Opening the Word” column was originally published in Our Sunday Visitor newspaper on January 1, 2012.) Our response should be that of the shepherds, glorifying and praising God, for he has blessed us with grace, peace, and salvation. She is also the Mother of all believers and the Mother of the Church (cf, Catechism, 963, 975). Mary, then, is not a tube or a biological vessel, but the Holy Mother of God. Augustine, “unless she had borne Christ more happily in her heart than in her flesh.” ![]() “Even her maternal relationship would have done Mary no good”, wrote St. Mary’s physical role has eternal meaning and value because of her faith, flowing from a heart completely given to God. The heart, in Scripture, is not merely a place of emotions or feelings, but is the deepest, most intimate part of one’s being. Mary, in pondering the birth of her Son, “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Lk 2:19, 51). This dwelling place among men has a particular abode, another brushstroke: “heart”. For the first time in the plan of salvation and because his Spirit had prepared her, the Father found the dwelling place where his Son and his Spirit could dwell among men” (par 721). The Catechism expressed this Trinitarian work and Mary’s perfect cooperation with grace in this beautiful way: “Mary, the all-holy ever-virgin Mother of God, is the masterwork of the mission of the Son and the Spirit in the fullness of time. This profound truth is condensed by Paul into a phrase that captures, in a most fundamental form, the saving work of the Trinity: “God send the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” The birth of the Son of God, Paul declared, had a most incredible goal: “so that we might receive adoption as sons.” The only Son of God by nature became man so men can become sons of God by another brushstroke, that of grace, which is God’s own divine life. God sent his Son, Paul explained, “born of a woman, born under the Law…” God blessed man by becoming man, and the blessing of the Incarnation was through the power of the Holy Spirit and the faith of Mary. It’s worth noting that the first reading heard on the first day of the civil calendar is about God’s blessing: “The Lord bless you and keep you!” God desires to bless us during our time upon earth he wishes to shine his face upon us, which means he extends an offer of intimate and holy communion.Īnd how, in the fullness of time-as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians-did that blessing come about? Through another brushstroke, that of “birth”. One of those brushstrokes is the word “bless”. Rather, within the liturgical celebration, they are divine brushstrokes that together create and write an icon of the Blessed Mother. The readings on this marvelous Solemnity are not, of course, presented as a defense of the Theotokos (literally, “God-bearer” or “Mother of God”). What changed my mind? Many things, including the study of Church history and the development of theology and doctrine, but mostly a deeper and better understanding of Scripture. But now I joyfully confess the truth that Mary is indeed the Mother of God. A close relative, also a Fundamentalist, once referred to Mary as a “biological vessel” used by God, and at one time I would have agreed. Those are strong words, and if I had heard them while still a Fundamentalist Protestant, I would have been scandalized. Gregory of Nazianzus, “If anyone says that Christ passed through the virgin as through a tube but was not formed in her in both a divine and human manner, divine without the assistance of man, human in accordance with the law of pregnancies, he likewise is ungodly.” “If anyone believes that holy Mary is not the mother of God ( Theotokos), he has no share in the divine inheritance”, wrote the great fourth-century Archbishop and Doctor of the Church, St. ![]()
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