Can mere human be called mother of God? How possible is it that God should have a human mother? Can he still be called God if this happen? This and perhaps many more questions could be asked today as the Holy Mother Church in Her wisdom celebrates the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. That is, the celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the aspect of her motherhood of Jesus Christ, whom Christians see as the Lord, Son of God; celebrated by the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church on 1 January, the Octave (8th) day of Christmastide. This is befitting on the naming ceremony day of Jesus since to present the new born child for naming according to the Jewish tradition, the mother is also at the centre of admiration (Luke 2:21)
How does the church come to establish this Title?
It is pivotal at this point to note that what is at stake here is not Mary but the divinity and humanity of Jesus. The English title "Mother of God" is a literal translation of the Latin title Mater Dei , which in turn is a looser rendering of the corresponding Greek title Θεοτόκος ( Theotokos ), literally meaning "Bearer of God" dogmatically adopted by the First Council of Ephesus (431) as an assertion of the divinity of Christ . The title is thus fundamentally Christological rather than Mariological.
COUNCIL OF EPHESUS: Took place at the Cathedral of Ephesus on Pentecost day in the year 430 with 250 bishops to address the over-emphasized Christology of Jesus birth by Nestorius who claimed that, Mary conceived the man Jesus and the God Jesus. As such he postulated two persons: Jesus as man, as different from Jesus as God. Cyril the papa legate at the council came up with the word “hypostatic Union” meaning the two natures of Jesus are distinct, not confused, unmixed but united in the same person. The two nature were united in Mary’s womb at annunciation, therefore Mary is not just the mother of Jesus but also Mother of God hence Theotokos was approved. And Nestorius and his supporters were condemned.
The question here is, Did Mary give birth to Jesus? If yes, is Jesus God and Man ? Are these two nature of Jesus separable? If No then It implies That Mary gave birth to Jesus who is both God and Man hence she is the Mother of Jesus who is God therefore, the Title Mary Mother of God is befitting to her.
Karl Rahner teaches that hypostatic Union is God self communication to man through Christ. According to Karl Rahner a transcendental Christology presupposes an understanding of the relationship of mutual conditioning and mediation in human existence between what is transcendentally necessary and what is concretely and contingently historical. Karl Rahner holds that the real incarnation of the logos is indeed a mystery which calls for an act of faith.
Can we even entertain the notion of someone being simultaneously divine and human? How could Christ posses these properties? Scholars like Schleiermacher over the years, argued that Christ being truly divine would threaten the integrity of his humanity and dismiss the incarnation as incoherent. It will appear that there are contradictions in terms, when we face the particular case of Christ, his being simultaneously divine and human, this is true because human beings are limited in various ways whereas God as to be unlimited in virtually every way, as such for us to say that Christ is both divine and human means that he is both limited and unlimited with respect to many properties.
With respect to his divinity Christ is omniscient, but with respect to his humanity he is limited in knowledge. Collins holds that:
“Mutually exclusive characteristics are being simultaneously attributed to him but not within the same frame of reference. The personal union of divinity and humanity entailed by the incarnation exceeds our conceptuality, and cannot be clarified in plain descriptive language in such a way as to be positively intelligible.”
When explaining the personhood of Christ it may be unwise to pay attention on the individual subject and play down his being person-in-relation to the God whom he called ‘Abba’ The explicit doctrine of Christ as one divine person begins with the Chalcedonian definition of his being one prosopon or hypostasis. They state that: Christ is one and the same Lord Jesus consubstantial with the Father in Godhead and consubstantial with us in manhood. He was begotten of the Father before time and in time, for our salvation, became incarnate of the Virgin Mary. For in the person of Christ the two natures though distinct are united not divided, not separated into two persons. “ Accordingly, while the distinctness of both natures and substance is preserved, and both meet in one person, lowliness is assumed by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity; …Therefore in the entire and perfect nature of every Man was born very God, whole in what was his, whole in what was ours”. By this statement Christ is completely human and God. However he augments what was human, not diminishing what was divine.
History of the solemnity
The Second Vatican Council stated: "Clearly from earliest times the Blessed Virgin is honoured under the title of Mother of God." and at an early stage the Church in Rome celebrated on 1 January a feast that it called the anniversary ( Natale ) of the Mother of God . When this was overshadowed by the feasts of the Annunciation and the Assumption, adopted from Constantinople at the start of the 7th century, 1 January began to be celebrated simply as the octave day of Christmas, the "eighth day" on which, according to Luke 2:21, the child was circumcised and given the name Jesus.
In the 13th or 14th century, 1 January began to be celebrated in Rome, as already in Spain and Gaul, as the feast of the Circumcision of the Lord and the Octave of the Nativity, while still oriented towards Mary and Christmas, with many prayers, antiphons and responsories glorifying the maternity of Mary. Pope John XXIII 's 1960 rubrical and calendrical revision removed the mention of the circumcision of Jesus and called 1 January simply the Octave of the Nativity.
The feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was first granted, on the petition of King Joseph Manuel, to the dioceses of Portugal and to Brasil and Algeria, 22 January, 1751, together with the feast of the Purity of Mary, and was assigned to the first Sunday in May. In the following year both feasts were extended to the province of Venice, 1778 to the kingdom of Naples, and 1807 to Tuscany. In the Roman Breviary the feast of the Maternity was commemorated on the second, and the feast of the Purity on the third, Sunday in October. At Mesagna in Apulia it was kept 20 February in commemoration of the earthquake, 20 February 1743. This particular feast was not included in the universal calendar of the church, but a number of diocesan calendars had adopted it. By 1914, the feast was established in Portugal for celebration on 11 October and was extended to the entire Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI in 1931.
St Thomas Aquinas teaches that: “For it is reasonable to believe that she, who brought forth "the Only-Begotten of the Father full of grace and truth," received greater privileges of grace than all others: hence we read (Lk. 1:28) that the angel addressed her in the words: "Hail full of grace!" If God honours Mary why can’t we do same?
Let us pray
Father as we proclaim the Virgin Mary to be the mother of Christ and the mother of the Church, may our communion with her son bring us to salvation.
Rev Fr Lawrence Ogundipe sdv
How does the church come to establish this Title?
It is pivotal at this point to note that what is at stake here is not Mary but the divinity and humanity of Jesus. The English title "Mother of God" is a literal translation of the Latin title Mater Dei , which in turn is a looser rendering of the corresponding Greek title Θεοτόκος ( Theotokos ), literally meaning "Bearer of God" dogmatically adopted by the First Council of Ephesus (431) as an assertion of the divinity of Christ . The title is thus fundamentally Christological rather than Mariological.
COUNCIL OF EPHESUS: Took place at the Cathedral of Ephesus on Pentecost day in the year 430 with 250 bishops to address the over-emphasized Christology of Jesus birth by Nestorius who claimed that, Mary conceived the man Jesus and the God Jesus. As such he postulated two persons: Jesus as man, as different from Jesus as God. Cyril the papa legate at the council came up with the word “hypostatic Union” meaning the two natures of Jesus are distinct, not confused, unmixed but united in the same person. The two nature were united in Mary’s womb at annunciation, therefore Mary is not just the mother of Jesus but also Mother of God hence Theotokos was approved. And Nestorius and his supporters were condemned.
The question here is, Did Mary give birth to Jesus? If yes, is Jesus God and Man ? Are these two nature of Jesus separable? If No then It implies That Mary gave birth to Jesus who is both God and Man hence she is the Mother of Jesus who is God therefore, the Title Mary Mother of God is befitting to her.
Karl Rahner teaches that hypostatic Union is God self communication to man through Christ. According to Karl Rahner a transcendental Christology presupposes an understanding of the relationship of mutual conditioning and mediation in human existence between what is transcendentally necessary and what is concretely and contingently historical. Karl Rahner holds that the real incarnation of the logos is indeed a mystery which calls for an act of faith.
Can we even entertain the notion of someone being simultaneously divine and human? How could Christ posses these properties? Scholars like Schleiermacher over the years, argued that Christ being truly divine would threaten the integrity of his humanity and dismiss the incarnation as incoherent. It will appear that there are contradictions in terms, when we face the particular case of Christ, his being simultaneously divine and human, this is true because human beings are limited in various ways whereas God as to be unlimited in virtually every way, as such for us to say that Christ is both divine and human means that he is both limited and unlimited with respect to many properties.
With respect to his divinity Christ is omniscient, but with respect to his humanity he is limited in knowledge. Collins holds that:
“Mutually exclusive characteristics are being simultaneously attributed to him but not within the same frame of reference. The personal union of divinity and humanity entailed by the incarnation exceeds our conceptuality, and cannot be clarified in plain descriptive language in such a way as to be positively intelligible.”
When explaining the personhood of Christ it may be unwise to pay attention on the individual subject and play down his being person-in-relation to the God whom he called ‘Abba’ The explicit doctrine of Christ as one divine person begins with the Chalcedonian definition of his being one prosopon or hypostasis. They state that: Christ is one and the same Lord Jesus consubstantial with the Father in Godhead and consubstantial with us in manhood. He was begotten of the Father before time and in time, for our salvation, became incarnate of the Virgin Mary. For in the person of Christ the two natures though distinct are united not divided, not separated into two persons. “ Accordingly, while the distinctness of both natures and substance is preserved, and both meet in one person, lowliness is assumed by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity; …Therefore in the entire and perfect nature of every Man was born very God, whole in what was his, whole in what was ours”. By this statement Christ is completely human and God. However he augments what was human, not diminishing what was divine.
History of the solemnity
The Second Vatican Council stated: "Clearly from earliest times the Blessed Virgin is honoured under the title of Mother of God." and at an early stage the Church in Rome celebrated on 1 January a feast that it called the anniversary ( Natale ) of the Mother of God . When this was overshadowed by the feasts of the Annunciation and the Assumption, adopted from Constantinople at the start of the 7th century, 1 January began to be celebrated simply as the octave day of Christmas, the "eighth day" on which, according to Luke 2:21, the child was circumcised and given the name Jesus.
In the 13th or 14th century, 1 January began to be celebrated in Rome, as already in Spain and Gaul, as the feast of the Circumcision of the Lord and the Octave of the Nativity, while still oriented towards Mary and Christmas, with many prayers, antiphons and responsories glorifying the maternity of Mary. Pope John XXIII 's 1960 rubrical and calendrical revision removed the mention of the circumcision of Jesus and called 1 January simply the Octave of the Nativity.
The feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was first granted, on the petition of King Joseph Manuel, to the dioceses of Portugal and to Brasil and Algeria, 22 January, 1751, together with the feast of the Purity of Mary, and was assigned to the first Sunday in May. In the following year both feasts were extended to the province of Venice, 1778 to the kingdom of Naples, and 1807 to Tuscany. In the Roman Breviary the feast of the Maternity was commemorated on the second, and the feast of the Purity on the third, Sunday in October. At Mesagna in Apulia it was kept 20 February in commemoration of the earthquake, 20 February 1743. This particular feast was not included in the universal calendar of the church, but a number of diocesan calendars had adopted it. By 1914, the feast was established in Portugal for celebration on 11 October and was extended to the entire Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI in 1931.
St Thomas Aquinas teaches that: “For it is reasonable to believe that she, who brought forth "the Only-Begotten of the Father full of grace and truth," received greater privileges of grace than all others: hence we read (Lk. 1:28) that the angel addressed her in the words: "Hail full of grace!" If God honours Mary why can’t we do same?
Let us pray
Father as we proclaim the Virgin Mary to be the mother of Christ and the mother of the Church, may our communion with her son bring us to salvation.
Rev Fr Lawrence Ogundipe sdv
Very Good explanation. Thanks Padre
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