We begin the New Year in the most beautiful way possible, celebrating the great Marian holiday, the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. The title “Mother of God” (Greek: Theotokos), an honorific for Mary, the mother of Jesus, emerged in the East in the 4th century and was established in the Church based on theological, Christological, and Mariological discussions. It was solemnly accepted in 431 at the Council of Ephesus, and since then has been used in the West (Latin Dei genetrix and Mater Dei). Today, the Church presents to us Mary’s greatest attribute, her divine motherhood. At the Annunciation of Jesus’ birth, the angel speaks to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Mary is a human creature and the person who gave Christ only human nature, which belongs to another divine person with whom it is essentially united.
When Mary is called and honored as the Mother of God by the Church from the earliest times, the Church confesses in this honorable title its faith in the great mystery of the Incarnation, through which in Christ, two natures, divine and human, are united indivisibly and inseparably in one person. The Church’s teaching has reaffirmed this truth on the occasion of the 1500th anniversary of the Council of Ephesus in the encyclical “Lux Veritatis” (The Light of Truth) by Pius XI, at the Second Vatican Council in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, and in the Creed of Paul VI. For confirmation of this truth, we find clear texts already among the earliest Church Fathers. In the Holy Scriptures, Elizabeth addresses Mary: “Why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Saint Ignatius of Antioch states that Mary gave birth to God, and Tertullian that God was born from Mary. This is the uninterrupted faith of the Church from its beginnings to today, which we joyfully celebrate in today’s feast.
