Mother of God

1000 words, 5 minute read

In Roman Catholic theology, Mary, the mother of Jesus, has a prominent, unique, and controversial role.

Despite persistent efforts to associate Mary with the multi-cultural White Goddess of Global Mythology (Robert Graves), Pope Leo XIV recently reiterated the Catholic doctrine that Mary can in no way be regarded as co-redemptrix with her son. But subject to that one restriction, it seems the sky’s the limit when it comes to Mariology. So let’s jump in! 

Jesus Christ, as understood by Christians, is a unique theological phenomenon. Unlike the dime-a-dozen godmen of Mythology, Christ is not a blend of human and divine characteristics. Christ is ‘true God and true Man’, i.e. wholly divine and wholly human. The ability of these seemingly incompatible natures to co-exist in one integrated person is Christianity’s defining characteristic.

According to the Nicaean Creed (325 CE), Jesus was ‘begotten…before all ages’ by God the Father, ‘Maker of Heaven and Earth’, and ‘born of the Virgin Mary and made man’. 

Jesus was not born fully formed from the head of some god; like us, Jesus was conceived in his mother’s womb and developed there over 9 months prior to his birth. This alone confirms Mary’s exalted position in salvation history. She provided the thread that tethered the eternal, transcendent Christ to the immanent, spatiotemporal world. 

To reiterate: Jesus is true God and true man (sic). Mary is fully human but not divine. But this takes nothing away from Mary. Far from it, Mary’s unique and critical role in Salvation history precludes her sharing Christ’s divinity in any way. 

First, Mary is the 2^nd Eve, the ‘mother of all the living’; Eve in turn is ‘flesh of Adam’s flesh’ and Adam simply means ‘man’. Mary, like Eve, must be incurably mortal. 

Second, Mary is the point from which Christ entered into the material world. She is also the point at which that world first enters the Kingdom of God (aka Eternity, Eschaton, Heaven). Literally and in more ways than one, Mary is the Gate of Heaven.

Jesus Christ is the union of heaven and earth, time and eternity. Mary is the unique material locus which serves both as the on-ramp for Jesus coming into the World and the off-ramp for the World returning to Christ.  

At the Incarnation, the Universe quite literally turns itself inside-out. Simple! One and done. The Transcendent becomes Immanent so that the Immanent may become Transcendent. 

As a pre-teen boy (1950 – 1960), I wore a round neck, pull over jersey almost every day of my life. Every morning (or afternoon if it was a school day), I put on the jersey; every night, as I took it off, I automatically turned it inside out. Little did I know that each night I was reenacting the Incarnation. I had unwittingly created a new sacrament.

And speaking of the Immanent becoming Transcendent, that process is anything but one and done. It unfolds in stages, beginning with the Death of Jesus, his Resurrection and Ascension, the Gift of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), and the Assumption of Mary…and continuing through the Apocalypse, the General Judgment, and the Parousia. 

The great unfolding also extends backwards in time to embrace the Prophets, Judges, and Patriarchs in a universal eschaton stretching from Alpha to Omega. Origami was not part of my culture growing up but had it been, it might have served as another sacramental reenactment of the Incarnation.

Mary ‘wraps around’ Jesus: she conceives him, births him, raises him, cajoles him, buries him and witnesses his Ascension into Heaven. Likewise, she is the ‘first fruit’ of his Resurrection, being assumed into Heaven, body and soul. For Jesus – and for us too? – his mother encapsulates and embodies the material world.

This is appropriate. The life of Christ is a fulcrum, the tipping point in cosmic history. From Christ grace flows forwards and backwards in time and Jesus’ mother is the first beneficiary of both (Annunciation & Assumption).

Earlier, we dismissed the notion that Mary was a goddess in the mythological tradition. Rightly so! Mary personifies the spatiotemporal. If she participated in divinity in any way she would not be able to play her critical role in Salvation history.

Among the titles conferred on Mary by the Catholic Church’s preferred Litany, several strongly reinforce her significance as the locus of Christ’s entry into the material World and the World’s physical reentry into Christ:

Mother of Christ

Mother of the Church

Mother of our Creator

Mother of our Savior

Ark of the covenant

Gate of Heaven.

Other epithets, however, connect Mary with functions in the material world that do seem to recapitulate those of various pre-Christian goddesses such as Sophia, Gaia & Easter:

Mirror of justice

Seat of wisdom

Health of the sick

Comforter of the afflicted

Mother of Good Counsel

Queen of peace

Morning star.

Interestingly, Themis, daughter of Gaia and the Greek goddess of Justice, is also referred to as Mother of Good Counsel. Others of these titles also connect Mary with pre-Christian goddesses (e.g. Sophia  → Wisdom,  Morning Star → Venus).

These are some staggering attributions: ‘Mother of our Creator…Mirror of Justice…Ark of the Covenant…Gate of Heaven…Queen of Peace?’ Wouldn’t you love to have Mary’s resume? 

Now imagine the world without these things…imagine a world without Mary! Can you do it? If you can, then you’re imagining a dystopian world on the order of Mad Max or Bazil. But more likely, you can’t. In that case, Mary’s unique contribution is ‘necessary’ (but never ‘sufficient’) for the existence and redemption of our world. Ave Maria, Mater Dei.

***

Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Virgin Mary in Meditation (1905) portrays Mary in a quiet, lamplit interior, her face lowered in deep, human contemplation rather than idealized perfection. The soft, diffused light and gentle brushwork give the scene an intimate, Impressionist‑inflected atmosphere that emphasizes her inner spiritual life.