The DIVINE MATERNITY of MARY
The 'THEOTOKOS', or 'Mother of God'. Think about how awesome this title is. The Mother of our Creator! From the Orthodox Church: The Virgin Mary is the Theotokos, the mother of Jesus Christ, the Son and Word of God. She conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. She was cared for by her betrothed husband, Joseph, who took the child and his mother into his home as his own. One very strong tradition in the Orthodox Church holds that the birth of Jesus was also miraculous and left Mary's virginity intact as a sign; it is also the tradition of the Church that Joseph and Mary did not have relations after the birth of Jesus. She is also called Panagia, the "All-Holy," indicating her closeness to God in her obedience.
The title Theotokos (in Greek, Θεοτοκος) is a Greek word that means "God-bearer" or "Birth-giver to God."
When Mary of Nazareth conceived in Her womb the Word of God, that conception was the effect of the fullness of Her grace, and of an action of the Holy Spirit which occurred in Her soul first of all, thereby making of Her flesh a tabernacle and a sanctuary. The dignity of the Mother of God is Her great sanctity, it is the incomparable grace which raises Her above all the Angels, the grace in which She was predestined and created for this glorious purpose. By the acts of Her blessed Maternity, She bordered on divinity while remaining entirely human. In this way She seems to exhaust, as it were, the power of God - the fullness of the grace accorded Her cannot be surpassed. It is easier for us to conceive of the greatness of Mary, however, when we consider Her maternity of the Mystical Body, the Church, which like Herself is entirely human, and composed of persons who are very far indeed from being what our Saviour was, a Divine Person incarnate.
We understand better what Mary is for the Church by listening to Saint Louis Mary de Montfort, Apostle of the Cross and of the Rosary of Our Lady. As Mary was necessary for God in the Incarnation of the Word, so She is necessary for Him to sanctify souls and bring about their likeness to Christ, and She is much needed by us, in our great infirmity:
"The Holy Ghost gives no heavenly gift to men which He does not have pass through Her virginal hands...; such is the sentiment of the Church and its holy Fathers. Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the Saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing contrary to the eternal and immutable Will of God. When we read then in the writings of Saints Bernard, Bernardine, Bonaventure and others, that in heaven and on earth everything, even God Himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin, they mean that the authority which God has been well pleased to give Her is so great that it seems as if She had the same power as God; and that Her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother, because She is always humble and conformed to His Will. If Moses, by the force of his prayer, stayed the anger of God against the Israelites in a manner so powerful that the most high and infinitely merciful Lord, being unable to resist him, told him to let Him alone that He might be angry with and punish that rebellious people, what must we not, with much greater reason, think of the prayer of the humble Mary, the worthy Mother of God, which is more powerful with His Majesty than the prayers and intercessions of all the Angels and Saints both in heaven and on earth?"
"The sin of our first father has spoiled us all, soured us, puffed us up and corrupted us... The actual sins which we have committed, whether mortal or venial, pardoned though they may be, have nevertheless increased our concupiscence, our weakness, our inconstancy and our corruption, and have left evil remains in our souls... We have nothing for our portion but pride and blindness of spirit, hardness of heart, weakness and inconstancy of soul, revolted passions, and sicknesses in the body... Let us say boldly with Saint Bernard that we have need of a mediator with the Mediator Himself, and that it is the divine Mary who is most capable of filling that charitable office. It was through Her that Jesus Christ came to us, and it is through Her that we must go to Him. If we fear to go directly to Jesus Christ, our God, whether because of His infinite greatness or because of our vileness, or because of our sins, let us boldly implore the aid and intercession of Mary, our Mother. She is good, She is tender, She has nothing in Her that is austere and forbidding, nothing too sublime and too brilliant... She is so charitable that She repels none of those who ask Her intercession, no matter how great sinners they have been; for, as the Saints say, never has it been heard, since the world was the world, that anyone has confidently and perseveringly had recourse to our Blessed Lady and yet been repelled." (True Devotion to Mary)
The Maternity of Mary
by Alfred McBride, O.Praem.
Cardinal Newman wrote a touching and remarkable comment about the impact of Mary's maternity. To Newman it was plain that Jesus was so close to Mary that he must even have physically looked like her.
He imbibed, He absorbed into his divine Person, her blood and the substance of her flesh; by becoming man of her, He received her lineaments and features, as the appropriate character in which he was to manifest Himself to mankind. The child is like the parent, and we may well suppose that by His likeness to her was manifested her relationship to Him.
—Ian Ker, Newman on Being a Christian
Mary passed on to Jesus his physical features, as Newman strikingly attests. Her motherhood went beyond that as she formed his human character. Mary trained and educated him as any mother brings up a child. Her virtues would have an impact on him. All of us realize that our mother's influence is recognizable in us and we can reasonably conclude that Mary's influence was evident in Jesus.
Mary was more than merely the biological mother of the Lord Jesus. Mary's task in the Incarnation was not over after the event in the stable at Bethlehem. Birth was followed by education. Mary exercised a continuous formation of the young Jesus as he grew from infancy to childhood to the teen years to young manhood.
The New Testament does not tell us how this happened. There is only one brief glimpse given by Luke 2:41-52 in the narrative of the losing and finding of the boy Jesus in the Temple. Mary acts like a typical mother, with the emotions of loss and anxiety and with the maternal demand to know why her son would go off without telling her and Joseph. (Think about how scary this must have been for them; to lose God!? When I do the Joyful Mystery about the finding, I always ask that I might not lose sight of Him.)
It is interesting that Luke cites her words and not Joseph's. "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety" (2:48). These are words we expect a mother to say. Mary is not shy about asserting her maternal authority. It flows from her love, of course. Why should she not have worried about him? The passage closes with words about Jesus continuing to grow in wisdom and grace before God and all others.
Aside from this brief anecdote, we know nothing else about what happened between mother and son all those years. Her maternal training style, her motherly witness of virtues, her approach to parenting is not recorded for us. Nonetheless, we should not forget that it happened. Mary was indeed mother of God (Himself). But she was also a human mother of a son who had a human upbringing, however that occurred.
I share this reflection with you because I believe that just as Mary knew how to be a mother of Jesus, she knows how to be our mother, too. She raised him in a household of faith. She had the remarkable experience of forming him in a human and spiritual sense while at the same time contemplating his mystery. How this happens is not revealed to us.
This should move us to be eager to have Mary offer us her maternal care. Ask Mary, as I do, to mother us in faith, hope and love of the Lord Jesus. When your heart is anxious, turn to Mary and say, "Mary, put my heart at peace." When your mind is too busy, look to Mary and pray, "Mary, settle down my mind." When you want to grow and deepen your life, look to Mary and beg, "Mary, just as you helped Jesus grow in wisdom and grace, help me also to advance on the spiritual path which God has laid out for me."
—From the book Images of Mary
I just happened to insert this last part, mainly because I re-noticed that I have first-class relic of Cardinal Newman. I don't really believe in 'coincidences'. Everything happens for a reason. If you really want to learn about the 'formative' years of our Lord, get a hold of the City of God by Mary of Agreda. It is our Lady describing our Lord's life, as well as her own. Four volumes, not the abridged.
Read on for more concerning the 'Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary'.
On the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
from "The Book of the Holy Rosary"--page 32, 1872
St. Augustine states: "We must remember that there are two nativities of Jesus Christ taught by the Catholic faith--the one Divine, the other human; the one from all eternity, the other in time. Both marvellous--the one without a Mother, the other without a Father. If we are not able to comprehend the latter, how shall we be able to declare the former? And who is there who can comprehend a marvel so entirely beyond all human experience; so completely a thing alone and by itself in the world; so incredible, and yet, in fact, actually received, and even universally believed, in spite of its incredibility--to wit, that a virgin should conceive, give birth, and yet remain a virgin? What human reason cannot grasp, faith holds fast; where reason fails, faith advances. Who is there who would say that the Eternal Word, by whom all things were made, could not have taken flesh without a mother, as He made the first man without either father or mother? But, inasmuch as beyond all doubt He was the Creator of both sexes, the male and the female, so in His birth He wished to pay honour to them both, seeing that He came to redeem both. In neither sex, therefore, ought we to do any injury to our Creator, for our Lord, in His holy nativity, has opened the way for both sexes to hold fast to the hope of their salvation. The honour of the male sex is in the Humanity of Christ; the honour of the female sex is in the Mother of Christ. The grace of Jesus Christ has overcome the craftiness of the serpent" (St Augustine, Seventh Sermon on the Nativity of Christ).
The Abbot Amedeus writes: "Eve's maternity was in the way of nature; Mary's was that of mother and virgin. Eve's maternity was in pain and sorrow; Mary's in joy. Eve's maternity belonged to the old world; Mary's to the new. Eve became the mother of a servant; and Mary of the Lord of all. Eve gave birth to a transgressor; and Mary to the Just One. Eve brought into the world a sinner; Mary Him who justifies from sin. Eve's parturition multiplies deaths; Mary's delivers from death. The serpent stands by at the side of Eve's childbirth to watch for his occasion; Mary is ministered to by angels. Eve is seized with trembling of heart; Mary is filled with heavenly joy. Eve exposes those to whom she gives birth to many dangers; Mary preserves her children from every evil. Wickedness follows close upon Eve's childbirth; grace on that of the Virgin Mary. In the maternity of Mary the heavens rejoiced and the earth was glad, hell also was moved to its depths. The clouds above displayed the brightness of their star, and sent forth a glorious company of the angels praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good-will" (Sermon on the Virgin Childbirth of Mary).
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