The
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God is an ancient feast first celebrated
in the East before it was in the West. By the 7th century this feast was
already celebrated in Rome. In the 13th and 14th centuries the feast of
the Circumcision of Christ replaced the Marian feast and was expanded
to the whole Roman Catholic Church when, in 1570, Pope St. Pius V
promulgated the Roman Missal.
In 1974 Pope Paul VI removed the
feast of the Circumcision of Christ from the liturgical calendar, and
replaced it with the feast of the “Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.”
The
title of “Mary Mother of God”, in Greek “Theotokus”, was defended and
defined by the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. against the heresy of
Nestorian.
Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, refuted the title
of “Theotokus” claiming that Christ had two loosely united natures, and
therefore, Mary was only the mother of the human part of Him.
Catholic
Theologians rejected this claim, and defined that Christ indeed has two
natures, a divine nature and a human nature definitely united in one
divine person, and since Christ’s two natures form one single person,
Mary is the mother of the whole person of Christ.
Therefore, Mary
can be properly called “Mother of God”, not in the sense that she came
before God or is the source of God, but in the sense that the Person
that she bore in her womb is indeed true God and true man.
Friday, January 1, 2021
Solemnity of Mary Mother of God
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