Mary, Mother of God

by Fr. Gabriel Terrill  |  01/04/2025  |  Weekly Reflection

Dear Friends,

We are now in the midst of the Christmas season and we recognize, during this time, the presence of the living Word of God in his creation by his miraculous incarnation. In this incarnation (taking on human flesh), Jesus maintains his divinity as consubstantial (of the same substance) with the Father and the Holy Spirit while also taking on human nature in the flesh in all ways but sin: a human will, a human intellect.

This means that Jesus is truly God and truly man and that while our human nature is united to the divine nature in the union of Jesus Christ (known as the hypostatic union), these two natures remain distinct from each other. This may be clear to us now, but in the early Church, Christ’s divinity was questioned and there were many erroneous ideas being promoted.

We now identify these as Christological heresies, false teachings about the nature of Christ. Many of these heresies either claimed that Christ was a creature made by God but not of God (consubstantial) or that Christ was just a facade or a mask that God wore and that the Word never truly took on or elevated our human nature. It is through these battles of theological debate that the Church defined her Christological doctrine. We find that it is also through our understanding of Christ’s nature that we define Marian doctrine and vice versa. In our understanding of Jesus, as being conceived in a human womb and born into the world, it only makes sense that the woman who bore the Christ would be inseparable from his incarnation. This is all to say that our understanding of Mary and the definition of her role in God’s plan for salvation is essential to understanding the Nature of Christ and even our relationship to him.

From Mary’s relationship with Christ, we have established the four Marian Dogmas, which are as follows: Mary’s motherhood of God, Mary’s perpetual virginity, Mary’s assumption into heaven in body and soul, and Mary’s immaculate conception. We just recently celebrated two of these: Mary’s Immaculate Conception on December 9th and Mary, the Mother of God on the 1st of January. The first of these Marian dogmas is crucial for understanding the incarnation as well as understanding Mary’s continued role in Christ’s bride, the Church. We recognize Mary as the “Mother of God,” which may seem impossible or even heretical at first glance. Certainly, there were heretical thinkers in the early Church who thought it incorrect to call Mary the Mother of God.

In Greek, we know Mary as the Theotokos which simply translates to “God-bearer.” This is because Mary literally bore God in her womb. However, heretical thinkers gave Mary an alternative title. This title was Christotokos, which translates to “Christ-bearer.” The implication here is that Mary did not bear God in her womb but instead the Christ. We may wonder what the issue here is since Jesus is the Christ and Mary did bear him in her womb, but the important distinction here is that Mary bore the Word incarnate in her womb, not a creature of God, but God made flesh.

The reason Mary’s motherhood is so important and her title as Theotokos so crucial is because the incarnation of God is recognized; that Mary is the Mother of God since she actually mothered the Word made flesh since Christ’s conception in her womb. Does this mean we believe that Mary existed before God and created him? No. God is the uncreated creator, and God created Mary. However, Mary was chosen to be the Mother of Jesus, the Christ, the Word incarnate. Understanding this is necessary to recognizing the incarnation of the Word and the nature of God’s plan of salvation, not only in reconciling us by offering his Son on the cross for us but also in elevating our nature through him as adopted sons and daughters of God.

Through our baptism in Christ, we call God our Father, and it is for this reason, too, that we call Mary our Mother in faith. So, as we celebrate Mary as the Theotokos, the Bearer of God, the Mother of God, we also honor her as the Mother of the Church and our Mother in faith. In as much as we become adopted sons and daughters of God through Christ, so too Mary becomes our Mother: Mary the Mother of Jesus, Mary the Mother of the faithful. We see this relationship directly established by our Lord on the cross in the gospel of John when he says, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour, the disciple took her into his home.” (John 19:26-27) In this interaction, Jesus hands Mary over to John, the apostle, as his mother. As such, we honor our Lady as our Mother in faith and the Mother of our Lord and ask her intercession as we begin a new year.