Jesus is Undivided
January 1, 2025
Solemnity of Mary, The Holy Mother of God
Nm 6:22-27/Gal 4:4-7/Lk 2:16-21 (Lectionary #18)
Does it feel strange to you to say Mary is the “mother of God”? How can a creature be the “mother” of her own Creator? But since Mary is the mother of Jesus, and Jesus is, in fact, both man and God, what are we saying about Jesus if we don’t say Mary is the “mother of God”? What part of him is she and is she not the mother of? Can we separate Jesus into parts?
The Church’s reason for proclaiming Mary “Mother of God” is based on a refusal to divide Christ by saying Mary was mother of his body, but not of his soul. Or of his humanity, but not of his divinity. She is mother of all that he is, both human and divine. Therefore, we call her “Mother of God.”
The mystery of Mary’s identity and ours are connected. The Prayer after Communion tells us how: “As we proclaim the Virgin Mary to be the mother of Christ and the mother of the Church, may our communion with her Son, bring us salvation.”
We are proclaiming that both Mary and we have communion with her Son in a very physical way through our bodies. Mary became related to Jesus (and to us, his body) as mother by giving him flesh through the “Yes” she spoke at the Annunciation. We became related to him as his real body on earth by “presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1) through the “Yes” we spoke at Baptism. Through both “yes’s” we entered into that “communion with Christ” that is our “salvation.”
By “salvation” we mean “grace,” which is the mystery of our sharing in the divine life of God. Our “communion with Christ” as members of his body on earth makes us not only human but divine. This is the essence of what we call “salvation.”
Invitation-Response
In Numbers 6: 22-27 God tells his People to ask, not just for some passing favor, but for the blessing of relationship: that the Lord would keep them, let his face shine on them, be gracious to them, look kindly upon them and give them enduring peace. The emphasis is on God’s attitude toward his People. The blessing asked for is one of enduring relationship.
This was the blessing for which Mary glorified the Lord: “Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed” — not just because she gave birth to the Savior, but because the interaction between God and her (invitation-surrender-Incarnation) brought about a unique relationship between God, Mary and the human race. Because Mary responded (“Let it be with me according to your word”) in a surrender powered by faith (“Blessed is she who believed!”), God “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” The result was an enduring relationship: “from now on all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1: 38, 45, 48). Today we celebrate what that relationship is by recognizing Mary as “Mother of God.”
The blessing of every interaction with God is relationship with him. The actions that establish or follow from a relationship do not stand apart from it and must not be separated from it. That is why we call Mary “Mother of God.” We focus on what she is (mother), not just on what she did in the one-time act of giving birth.
God does not just use people to do a job for him. When we accept an invitation to do something for him we enter into a relationship with him that changes who we are. That is why God changed the names of some whom he chose (e.g. Abram/Abraham, called in the Mass our “father in faith,” and Saul/Paul, who introduced himself constantly as “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God”). When Mary gave birth to God’s Son, she became the “Mother of God.”
Not just the mother of Jesus’ body. Not just the mother of his humanity. Both of these suggestions were rejected by the Church. But the mother of Jesus: of all that he is. No division, no separation. Mother of man. Mother of God.
The Responsorial Psalm asks for blessing through mercy: “May God bless us in his mercy!” (Psalm 67). It helps to know that the real definition of “mercy” is “to come to the aid of another out of a sense of relationship.” We don’t just ask God for help. We expect him to help us because we are family!
Incarnation
In Luke 2: 16-21 the shepherds “returned glorifying and praising God” for what they saw in Bethlehem’s stable.
What they saw was our relationship with God made visible by being made flesh. That is what Jesus is, the Church is, the sacraments are. That is why we use images of Jesus, of Mary and of the other saints. What increases our faith, our hope, our love (our holiness) is seeing God’s favor to us, his love for us, and our relationship with him made visible.
In the Prayer over the Gifts for the general “Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary” we say, “The birth of Christ… deepened the virgin mother’s love for you….” Why? Because she saw the word of God’s promise to her made flesh. So we pray, “May the humanity of Christ give us….” We need to deal with Christ physically.
Empowerment
Mary, by her “Yes,” became the Mother of God. We, by our “Yes” at Baptism, become the body of Christ and “in him” children of the Father. In Galatians 4: 4-7 Paul tells us the experiential “proof” of this is that God “has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out ‘Abba, Father!’” We are as truly the “body of Christ” and children of God as Mary is Mother of God. Our relationship with God is just as real as hers. If we are alert to the Spirit speaking within us, we will know it.
Theologically, we use the same principle to understand ourselves as the “body of Christ” that the Church uses to say Mary is “Mother of God.” Jesus cannot be divided. His humanity cannot be separated from his divinity or his body from his soul. So Mary is mother of all he is: body, soul, humanity and divinity. She is the mother of “Jesus.”
So also, when we say we are the “body of Christ,” we are his body, no matter what we are doing, whether saintly or sinful. When we sin, Jesus is not concurring in that choice with his divine will, but we involve him, because our actions are still actions of the body of Christ. St. Paul is shocking in his application of this:
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! (1Corinthians 6:15).
More importantly, when we do what Christ desires, it is not just we who are acting. Jesus himself is acting with us, in us and through us. Our actions are his actions. To deny this is to divide Jesus, something the Church rejected in defining that Mary is “Mother of God.”
When God asked Mary to be the Mother of God, he made her his cooperating instrument in the work of redemption. In doing this, God made clear that he gives the human race, and each one of us, a role to play in rebuilding fallen humanity. We are not hopelessly corrupted beings, utterly incapable of freely saying “Yes” to God’s grace and of living by his Spirit. Jesus continues to save the world by living and acting with us, in us and through us. Each one of us, as his body, must be the “messiah” wherever we live and act. Our vocation is to “be Christ,” to be all that he is as Prophet, Priest and King, and let Christ in us be all that we are: worker, citizen, friend, parent or spouse. In us Jesus continues to be “Emmanuel: God-with-us.” Truly, God has “blessed us in his mercy!”
Insight: Does calling Mary “Mother of God” make me realize how seriously the Church takes the Scriptures that call us the “body of Christ”?
Initiative: In everything you do, as often as you can train yourself to remember, say the WIT prayer: “Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this through me.”
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