Mary, Mother of God

I do not need to convince you of anything.

If you are like me you have confessed hundreds, even thousands of times, what we are here today to celebrate.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."

How often do we turn to our Blessed Mother to intercede for us as she sits as Queen of Heaven,

And in her queen-ship she still cares for us as our mother.

For as Paul told us we are no longer slaves, but adopted children of God, the Father,

because Mary is the mother of the redeemer and the redeemed.

 

At Christmas we looked back to the incarnation, God made man,  through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit and Mary's humility and her humanity and her body!

The Word was made flesh through the Virgin Mary.

And in this very real sense, Mary made God present in the world!

 

The Church has always proclaimed this as revealed truth and in 431,at the Council of Ephesus,

 Mary Mother of God was made a universal truth - a dogma of the Church.

We venerate Mary as we worship her son.

However we come to the Blessed Mother of God, we always find our way more surely to her son - Jesus.

Mary always points beyond herself - to him who saves.

In the liturgy of the Church we confess our belief in Mary, as the Mother of God.

In the Nicene Creed we say

"For us and our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man."

 

  In Eucharistic prayer 1, the venerable prayer of consecration the Church declares -

"In communion with . . .  the glorious, ever virgin, Mary, mother of our God and Lord - Jesus Christ"

 

The Blessed Virgin is always associated with the incarnation of the divine word,

God made flesh.

 She conceived, in absolute faith, she nourished in absolute love, she presented him in the temple, in humbleness, she shared his hidden years in Nazareth, and shared his ministry beginning with the wedding at Cana (when she said "do as he tells you" ), and continuing through her Son's death on the cross (when she held her dead son in her arms).

We share her joy at his glorious resurrection and the Grace of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Mary always cooperated; by her obedience, faith, and hope in the work of her son, our salvation.

If Jesus is the way, then Mary points to the Way.

If Jesus is Truth, then Mary embodied the Truth.

If Jesus is Life, then Mary is the Mother of Life.

 

 

 

When we confess Jesus is God, we confess Mary, as Mother of God.

 

This Truth is as simple as our love for her and her son.

 

Today, as every day, we say

 

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."