Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

Christmas 2010

When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son,
born of a woman, born under the law, 
to ransom those under the law, 
so that we might receive adoption as sons.

On this eight day of Christmas the Church celebrates the first and most important title given to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Of course, as she would wish, it directs our attention back to the Lord. There is a bit of history here, which I will attempt to recount without too many cross references to make sure I have the story correctly.

The council fathers gathered in Nicea in 325 to discuss the Church’s understanding of Jesus. Discussion might be too mild a word to describe their transactions but they were involved in a controversy of universal and eternal significance. They had to answer once and for all Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?” There was more than a bit of hardball politics and muscular machinations in their debate.

The Arians had said “Jesus is God.” They all agreed on that but “Was he also a man?” Is he fully human? Can God be born of a woman, with all the unseemly messiness that entails? Can God die on a cross? How absurd! The very idea is disgusting and insane. If he is fully human then Mary would be the mother of God, and that is too irrational to make sense to any reasonable human being.  

I remember as a boy pondering that strange notion. Even as a child I wondered how a woman who was created by God could be called the Mother of God.

But after a lot of arm twisting and anathematizing and so forth, the council agreed, “Jesus is the Son of God and Son of Man, fully divine and fully human! And yes, we’ll say it right out, ‘Mary is the Mother of God!”

The Arians went home in defeat and, like all repressed movements, found an afterlife in continuing contention in the Church.

But, in the meanwhile, the city broke out in spontaneous jubilation as the citizens lit bonfires and celebrated throughout the night. They had already developed their own devotions to Mary and, if I am not mistaken, claimed her as one of their citizens. (Supposedly, John the beloved disciple had brought her to Ephesus to live with him.)

It would make little sense for us to celebrate Christmas if Jesus is not fully human. If his appearing in Bethlehem and dying on Calvary was only a fake show, an apparition of a ghostlike man who didn’t actually eat or sweat or sleep – then our human nature would not be saved. There could be no hope of eternal life except for our disembodied, sexless souls and who wants that?

Nor would the earth have any meaning. It would vanish into thin insubstantiality at the end of time, an ephemeral illusion. History itself, with all its complexity and genius and passionate struggle, would be meaningless, an unfortunate but forgettable tragedy. 

As we continue to contemplate the earth in which we live as earthlings, created of the water and air and dirt and slime of this planet, the doctrine of God as a man is still challenging. We are still tempted to separate ourselves from the Earth, thinking we are actually better than dirt. But there is the Lord among us, eating earthly food and drinking earthly water (and wine) and doing all the things human beings do. There is our tender little God sucking at his mother’s generous breasts, and needing to be burped before he would puke her milk on Joseph’s shoulder. There is our naked God hanging on a cross with the life juices flowing from every orifice into the obscene mud beneath him.

“The Mother of God” invites endless contemplation on the blessedness of being earthy. We can find meaning even in our chronic illnesses, the diabetes and cancers and heart diseases that afflict us to this day. If they appear to be useless insults to the sublime beauty of our human potentiality, the mystery of the Incarnation transforms them into crosses rich with life.

The feast of Mary the Mother of God is a fitting end to this eight day festival of God's life among us.

May She bless you through her Son on this first day of the year.