Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Theotokos

Lectionary: 18

And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.

It is hard to understate the importance of Theotokos for Catholics and Catholicism. Americans, with our typical rush to simplicity, might translate Mary’s title as, “the Mother of God;” but the Greek word has more resonance. Its literal English translations include "God-bearer", "Birth-Giver of God" and "the one who gives birth to God." These expressions are rich with redolent wonder.

Mother is not just a status symbol indicating relationship or rank; birth-giver is about the full-body, full-being ordeal of birthing. It entails that giving which is necessarily generous, courageous, and surrendering to whatever may come. It embraces even the possibility of losing that which has been given.

After the Vatican Council many Catholics turned their attention away from our traditional fascination with Mary. Many devotional songs are too sweet, too cloying. Children, with their immature vocal range, learn these songs readily. But adults who do not indulge in childish sentimentality find them treacly, if not downright repellent.

At the same time, a “conservative” Catholicism claimed Mary as their banner, invoking especially the anti-Communist image of Our Lady of  Fatima. The “Mother of God” became a militant image with a faint odor of fear – fear of Communists, fear of modernism and liberals, fear of diversity, disagreement or development. Even deep thinking became suspect. Liberals, predictably, reacted by ignoring her presence in our communion all together.

However, despite the best efforts of liberals and conservatives, Theotokos remains as a mysterious invitation to know the Lord Jesus through his earthly mother, and to know the Mother of God through Jesus. She remains vital to our identity as disciples, believers and missionaries.

Can you know yourself without acknowledging your mother? Can you love your friend and care nothing for her parents? Can a Christian presume to love Jesus without grateful appreciation for the one who bore him?

There are innumerable scriptural references to cite when we consider the place of Mary in our communion but I think first of John 19: 27: “Behold your mother.” Jesus’ dying command is underlined by John’s next words, “and from that hour….” The Evangelist has signaled the coming of that hour several times; what happens in that hour is enormously important.

Jesus’s sacrificial death with all its significance is braided into those words, “Behold your mother.” You cannot possibly walk away from Calvary without her. She is your mother and mine; she is how we know one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We can no more ignore her than we can ignore Jesus.

But who would do such a thing? Why would I ignore this precious gift, this beautiful and holy woman who takes my hand as we stand before the cross? We are bound by his command to one another; and bound in love to every disciple/witness/evangelist.

It is not hard to despise the Church without Mary. Many people do. They look at Jesus whose sacrificial death redeemed the Universe. Then they look at his disciples. The Church seems only a pretentious bureaucracy ineptly conducting irrelevant rituals. 

But when we look at the Church through Jesus and Mary, with their loving compassion and generous hospitality; when we realize they are the LIVING HEART of the Church; and the rest of us, mere satellites: we begin to understand the full scope of what God has done for us.