Mary Mother of God

We begin our year with Mary our mother, and we celebrate her most important feast: Mary, mother of God, her divine maternity. We used to celebrate today the feast of the name of Jesus, Emmanuel. But the Church with wisdom swapped the feast, because when we have a baby, we have a mother. There is no baby without a mother. He is so defenceless, that Mary these days is the important one. We normally represent Jesus sitting on Mary’s lap, seat of wisdom, throne of glory. Baby Jesus became conscious of himself, when he realised another was looking after him. His first identity came from his mother, who gave him all the love and affection she had in her heart. She fed him with milk, kept him warm under woollen clothes, chaged his nappies, sang lullabies to put him to sleep, rocked the cradle, taught him to talk, held him whe he began to walk.

Today we celebrate this feast because nine months ago Mary said yes to God’s plans for her. It was the beginning of the incarnation, God becoming man, taking our human flesh, coming to us in the same way all of us enter this world. It was the beginning of our salvation, the work of our redemption. And all started when a young girl answered to God’s call. It reminds us of the importance of following God’s plans for us, without being afraid of their consequences. We don’t realise how God in a way, conditions his designs to our affirmative decisions.

The dogma was defined in the year 431 during the Council of Ephesus. It was necessary because some people were calling her just the mother of Jesus. But the logic is clear: if she is the mother of Jesus, and Jesus is God, therefore she is the mother of God. Not of his divinity, but of the person of Jesus Christ. It was an important definition, because it has a lot of consequences for us. It places us close to Mary and close to Jesus. She is our mother, the mother of Jesus and my mother, the mother of all human beings. Therefore Jesus is our elder brother and we all are sons and daughters of God.

The closer we are to Mary, the closer we are to Jesus. To access Jesus as a baby, we need to go through his mother. We cannot bypass her. She is our short cut. It is a pity Protestants have some apprehension about the mother of God. The devil hates her, because he knows her power, coming directly from her Son. It was foretold at the beginning, when the serpent attacked Eve, and the coming of a new Eve was prophesied. He knows that he cannot do much against her, and tries with all his might to separate us from the help of our mother.

Saint Josemaria was very proud of his love for Mary. You could almost feel it. He used to say that if anybody wanted to imitate him, it should be his devotion to her. He wrote a strong statement about her: “We go to Jesus, and we return to him, through Mary.” Once somebody asked him if he would write this again, thinking that it was a bit too strong, and it could be criticised by people who didn’t share his love for her. Saint Josemaria said yes, defending what he had written, but then he stopped, thought for a moment and said: “I would write now: Mary, the only way.”

josephpich@gmail.com