Solemnity of Mary Mother of God

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

January 1st 2018

Every year on the 1st January, the Church celebrates the great Feast / Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

This Feast dates from the 5th Century A.D when the Council of Ephesus in 431 decided that the best way to counter a Heresy that was attacking the Divinity of Jesus, was to declare the Blessed Virgin Mary as being Mother of God.

Mary was declared to be the "God Bearer" or Theotokos in Greek.

The two natures of Jesus Christ being both truly God and truly Man were thereby confirmed.

This great Feast of Mary, Mother of God has been upheld and celebrated throughout both the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic) Churches since 431 AD. 

It was sadly an intrinsic part of the Protestant "Reformation" that the role of Mary as Mother of the Church, Mother of the Saviour and Mother of the Redeemed was denigrated and disrespected.

A period of Iconoclastic sacrilege became English State Policy starting under Edward VI, then Elizabeth 1st and her successors aided by Cromwell and his money grabbing Monastery despoiling thugs. 

Nearly all statues and stained glass windows depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary were smashed.

Beautiful works of art that had stood in churches all over England, Scotland and Wales for hundreds of years were wantonly and digracefuly desecrated in the name of "the new religion" and to get rid of "Popish superstition"

The consequence among many good Christian Protestant people today is a complete ignorance of the actual history of Christianity before the "Reformation" and the great devotion to Mary, Mother of God throughout the centuries by their Catholic ancestors and for many many centuries before Luther ever got "inspired"

By the way, it always amuses me that Protestants believe the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles but that somehow the Holy Spirit disappeared after the "Early Church" of the 1st century AD and that somehow the Church, (that Jesus Christ promised the gates of Hell would not prevail against), became "corrupted" The Holy Spirit some how disappeared from history and then reappeared in the 16th century onto Luther and the Protestant "Reformers"!! 

oh please spare me such unhistorical and untheological nonsense.

"They have ears but they cannot hear and eyes but they cannot see."

"Theotokos"

The God Bearer

The Title Mother of God seems strange to our modern ears, it seems to be a ridiculous denigration of Almighty God. 

Does God have or need a Mother??? of course not, nobody would be so foolish as to believe that God who created the Universe out of nothing has a "Mother"

The purpose of the Title is to define who Jesus Christ is.

Jesus Christ, the Saviour is both Truly God and Truly Man. 

Old Heresies and some very modern ones challenge this ascertion and say No, He was only Human and born of a Human being.

Others say No, He was Divine and only appeared to be a Human.

Others say No, He was Human but the Son of God, inferior to God but partially Divine.

Some Heresies say Jesus was a Prophet. Some say He was a Mystical Teacher.

Some Heresies say Jesus was a Magician, some say Jesus was a Freedom Fighter some say a Rebel against the Roman occupation. 

Some Heresies say Jesus never wanted to challenge the High Priest of the Jewish Temple or the Jewish or Roman authorities at all.

Some heresies say Jesus did not die on the Cross.

Some heresies say Jesus did not rise from the dead.

Some heresies say there never was a Jesus. 

some heresies say that He never intended to found a religion.

Some Heresies say Jesus did not pass on His teaching authority to the St Peter and the Apostles and thereby to the Church down the centuries.

Some heresies say Jesus was a misunderstood Jewish Prophet like hundreds before him.

The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church both Eastern and Western branches says this:

Mary is Mother of God. 

Therefore Jesus Christ whom she gave birth to without loss of her virginity is both True God and True Man. 

The second person of the Blessed Trinity took flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary.

Succinct and true.

As the Nicene Creed (4th century) says: "For us Men and for our salvation, He came down from Heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit,  He became incarnated of the Virgin Mary and was made Man"

"And The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us"

Et Verbum Carum Factus Est"

"Mater et Dei"

Mother of God