Behold, Thy Mother!

A 12th Century Latin Illuminated Manuscript, Depicting the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, Held at the British Library

A Sermon for the Feast of the Dormition of the Holy Theotokos (August 15th) 

By Bishop Joseph Boyd (Ancient Church of the West)

Introduction 

Blessed feast of the Dormition/Assumption, when we commemorate the life and example of our Blessed Mother, the Most Holy Theotokos and Mother of Our God and Savior, Jesus Christ! “All generations shall call me blessed” is the biblical prophecy of her place of love and respect within the Church, as we thank God for the Holy Virgin and what He accomplished through her simple and humble response to the Annunciation, “So be it unto me according to thy word.” Blessed Feast! 

Scripture Readings 

The Old Testament Reading: Judith 13:18-20; 15:10 

In those days the prophet spoke: "O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God, who created the heavens and the earth, who has guided you to strike the head of the leader of our enemies. Your hope will never depart from the hearts of men, as they remember the power of God. May God grant this to be a perpetual honor to you, and may he visit you with blessings, because you did not spare your own life when our nation was brought low, but have avenged our ruin, walking in the straight path before our God." You have done great good to Israel, and God is well pleased with it. May the Almighty Lord bless you for ever!" 

The Epistle Reading: Galatians 4:4-7 

Brethren: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. 

The Gospel Reading: Luke 1:41-55 

Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” 

Old Testament Shadows of the Role of the Theotokos 

A) The woman who crushes the head of the serpent - Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” 

B) The Burning Bush, the Ark of the Covenant, Divine Wisdom (Proverbs 8, Baruch 3) and the layout of the Holy Tabernacle were all prophetic types of the Holy Virgin. 

C) The “Virgin” who conceives and bears a son - Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” 

D) Judith as the warrior who preserves her honor against all men, and her song of victory, which we read today, has direct parallels with the Magnificat. (Luke 1:46-55) 

The New Testament Testifies of the Virgin's Importance 

A) The Protoevangelium tells us of her manner of upbringing, her dedication in the Temple, her spotless character, her purity of life, and her ever-virgin status. 

B) St. Mary prophesies of her own position within the Church - Luke 1:46-55 “And Mary said: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation.He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty. He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever.’” 

C) The last thing Christ thought of was His Mother on the Cross, when He gave St. John the command to help and protect His Mother in John 19:26-27 “When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’ And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.” 

D) St. Mary witnessed the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and was in the midst of the Apostles at Pentecost in Acts 1:14 - “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.” 

E) Tradition tells us that St. Luke relied on her testimony for the contents of the Gospel he wrote, which considers her heart thoughts and intentions more than any other book (Luke 2:19). 

F) “The Woman Clothed with the Sun” in Revelation 12:1-6 - “Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.” 

The Early Church Tradition of the Dormition 

In the early 5th century, a document claiming to have been written by St. John the Theologian and Apostle, began to grow in popularity, outlining the story of the Theotokos’ “Dormition” or “Falling Asleep” in Greek, which brought all of the parallels with the Old Testament full circle and showed how she was like Moses, Enoch, Elijah, and Christ, being raised from the dead and taken up into heaven, as a kind of “first-fruits” of the Resurrection from the Dead. While not apostolic, this work compiles the oral tradition that grew up around the life of the Virgin, and is therefore very valuable to know what early Christians were understanding about the position of Theotokos in the Church. 

It has been pointed out by scholars that this documents reframes some elements of the Gospel narrative with the Holy Virgin in the place that Christ played in the Pauline epistles, where Mary goes to stand, resurrected and a promise of things to come, before her Son, the Lord Jesus, Who sits enthroned and in glory. In many ways, this was a result of the concern of the Early Church to show that Christ was consubstantial with the Father, and that Christ also reigned His Kingdom from Heaven, rather than having Him seen in a seemingly inferior intercessory role before an enthroned Father. With this change of position, however, vital details about the eternal liturgy in heaven can be obscured, so it is important to remember when and how this shift occurred. 

This beautiful account of the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of the Virgin Mary helps to remove Mary from any further questions about the nature of the Incarnation, any speculation that Christ was illegitimate or naturally born, and any doubts about his divine nature. Indeed, the plight of the doubting skeptic, who questions her virginity in this tale, is that an angel lops off his arms. Ironically, they are restored by St. Peter doing the same compassionate move of miraculous re-attachment that Christ did when St. Peter rashly used his sword against the servant who came to take Christ on the night of his betrayal. In all of these reflections of the biblical and Gospel narratives, we see that the Early Church was extremely concerned with protecting the honor and reputation of the Holy Theotokos, and we can also see how central her identity was to many of the early theological debates that defined the parameters of Orthodoxy in the Ancient Church. 

The Account of St. John the Theologian of the Falling Asleep of the Holy Mother of God

The Greek Story of the Dormition from Philip Schaff’s Ante-Nicene Fathers, Book 8 (pgs. 587-591)  

As the all-holy glorious mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, as was her wont, was going to the holy tomb of our Lord to burn incense, and bending her holy knees, she was importunate that Christ our God who had been born of her should return to her. And the Jews, seeing her lingering by the divine sepulchre, came to the chief priests, saying: Mary goes every day to the tomb. And the chief priests, having summoned the guards set by them not to allow any one to pray at the holy sepulchre, inquired about her, whether in truth it were so. And the guards answered and said that they had seen no such thing, God having not allowed them to see her when there. And on one of the days, it being the preparation, the holy Mary, as was her wont, came to the sepulchre; and while she was praying, it came to pass that the heavens were opened, and the archangel Gabriel came down to her and said: Hail, thou that didst bring forth Christ our God! Thy prayer having come through to the heavens to Him who was born of thee, has been accepted; and from this time, according to thy request, thou having left the world, shall go to the heavenly places to thy Son, into the true and everlasting life. 

And having heard this from the holy archangel, she returned to holy Bethlehem, having along with her three virgins who ministered unto her. And after having rested a short time, she sat up and said to the virgins: Bring me a censer, that I may pray. And they brought it, as they had been commanded. And she prayed, saying: My Lord Jesus Christ, who didst deign through Thy supreme goodness to be born of me, hear my voice, and send me Thy apostle John, in order that, seeing him, I may partake of joy; and send me also the rest of Thy apostles, both those who have already gone to Thee, and those in the world that now is, in whatever country they may be, through Thy holy commandment, in order that, having beheld them, I may bless Thy name much to be praised; for I am confident that Thou hearest Thy servant in everything. 

And while she was praying, I John came, the Holy Spirit having snatched me up by a cloud from Ephesus, and set me in the place where the mother of my Lord was lying. And having gone in beside her, and glorified Him who had been born of her, I said: Hail, mother of my Lord, who didst bring forth Christ our God, rejoice that in great glory thou art going out of this life. And the holy mother of God glorified God, because I John had come to her, remembering the voice of the Lord, saying: Behold thy mother, and, Behold thy son. And the three virgins came and worshipped. And the holy mother of God says to me: Pray, and cast incense. 

And at this I, John, prayed. 

And the Holy Spirit said to the apostles: Let all of you together, having come by the clouds from the ends of the world, be assembled to holy Bethlehem by a whirlwind, on account of the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ; Peter from Rome, Paul from Tiberia, Thomas from Hither India, James from Jerusalem. Andrew, Peter’s brother, and Philip, Luke, and Simon the Cananæan, and Thaddæus who had fallen asleep, were raised by the Holy Spirit out of their tombs; to whom the Holy Spirit said: Do not think that it is now the resurrection; but on this account you have risen out of your tombs, that you may go to give greeting to the honour and wonder-working of the mother of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, because the day of her departure is at hand, of her going up into the heavens. And Mark likewise coming round, was present from Alexandria; he also with the rest, as has been said before, from each country. And Peter being lifted up by a cloud, stood between heaven and earth, the Holy Spirit keeping him steady. And at the same time, the rest of the apostles also, having been snatched up in clouds, were found along with Peter. And thus by the Holy Spirit, as has been said, they all came together. 

And having gone in beside the mother of our Lord and God, and having adored, we said: Fear not, nor grieve; God the Lord, who was born of thee, will take thee out of this world with glory. And rejoicing in God her Saviour, she sat up in the bed, and says to the apostles: Now have I believed that our Master and God is coming from heaven, and I shall behold Him, and thus depart from this life, as I have seen that you have come. And I wish you to tell me how you knew that I was departing and came to me, and from what countries and through what distance you have come hither, that you have thus made haste to visit me. For neither has He who was born of me, our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of the universe, concealed it; for I am persuaded even now that He is the Son of the Most High. 

The apostles said all these things to the holy mother of God, why they had come, and in what way; and she stretched her hands to heaven and prayed, saying: I adore, and praise, and glorify Thy much to be praised name, O Lord, because Thou hast looked upon the lowliness of Thine handmaiden, and because Thou that art mighty hast done great things for me; and, behold, all generations shall count me blessed. And after the prayer she said to the apostles: Cast incense, and pray. And when they had prayed, there was thunder from heaven, and there came a fearful voice, as if of chariots; and, behold, a multitude of a host of angels and powers, and a voice, as if of the Son of man, was heard, and the seraphim in a circle round the house where the holy, spotless mother of God and virgin was lying, so that all who were in Bethlehem beheld all the wonderful things, and came to Jerusalem and reported all the wonderful things that had come to pass. And it came to pass, when the voice was heard, that the sun and the moon suddenly appeared about the house; and an assembly of the first-born saints stood beside the house where the mother of the Lord was lying, for her honour and glory. And I beheld also that many signs came to pass, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, lepers cleansed, and those possessed by unclean spirits cured; and every one who was under disease and sickness, touching the outside of the wall of the house where she was lying, cried out: Holy Mary, who didst bring forth Christ our God, have mercy upon us. And they were straightway cured. And great multitudes out of every country living in Jerusalem for the sake of prayer, having heard of the signs that had come to pass in Bethlehem through the mother of the Lord, came to the place seeking the cure of various diseases, which also they obtained. And there was joy unspeakable on that day among the multitude of those who had been cured, as well as of those who looked on, glorifying Christ our God and His mother. And all Jerusalem from Bethlehem kept festival with psalms and spiritual songs. 

And after all these wonderful things had come to pass through the mother of God, and ever-virgin Mary the mother of the Lord, while we the apostles were with her in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit said to us: You know that on the Lord’s day the good news was brought to the Virgin Mary by the archangel Gabriel; and on the Lord’s day the Saviour was born in Bethlehem; and on the Lord’s day the children of Jerusalem came forth with palm branches to meet him, saying, Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; and on the Lord’s day He rose from the dead; and on the Lord’s day He will come to judge the living and the dead; and on the Lord’s day He will come out of heaven, to the glory and honour of the departure of the holy glorious virgin who brought Him forth. And on the same Lord’s day the mother of the Lord says to the apostles: Cast incense, because Christ is coming with a host of angels; and, behold, Christ is at hand, sitting on a throne of cherubim. And while we were all praying, there appeared innumerable multitudes of angels, and the Lord mounted upon cherubim in great power; and, behold, a stream of light coming to the holy virgin, because of the presence of her only-begotten Son, and all the powers of the heavens fell down and adored Him. And the Lord, speaking to His mother, said: Mary. And she answered and said: Here am I, Lord. And the Lord said to her: Grieve not, but let thy heart rejoice and be glad; for thou hast found grace to behold the glory given to me by my Father. And the holy mother of God looked up, and saw in Him a glory which it is impossible for the mouth of man to speak of, or to apprehend. And the Lord remained beside her, saying: Behold, from the present time thy precious body will be transferred to paradise, and thy holy soul to the heavens to the treasures of my Father in exceeding brightness, where there is peace and joy of the holy angels,—and other things besides. And the mother of the Lord answered and said to him: Lay Thy right hand upon me, O Lord, and bless me. And the Lord stretched forth His undefiled right hand, and blessed her. And she laid hold of His undefiled right hand, and kissed it, saying: I adore this right hand, which created the heaven and the earth; and I call upon Thy much to be praised name Christ, O God, the King of the ages, the only-begotten of the Father, to receive Thine handmaid, Thou who didst deign to be brought forth by me, in a low estate, to save the race of men through Thine ineffable dispensation; do Thou bestow Thine aid upon every man calling upon, or praying to, or naming the name of, Thine handmaid. And while she is saying this, the apostles, having gone up to her feet and adored, say: O mother of the Lord, leave a blessing to the world, since thou art going away from it. For thou hast blessed it, and raised it up when it was ruined, by bringing forth the Light of the world. And the mother of the Lord prayed, and in her prayer spoke thus: O God, who through Thy great goodness hast sent from the heavens Thine only-begotten Son to dwell in my humble body, who hast deigned to be born of me, humble as I am, have mercy upon the world, and every soul that calls upon Thy name. And again she prayed, and said: O Lord, King of the heavens, Son of the living God, accept every man who calls upon Thy name, that Thy birth may be glorified. And again she prayed, and said: O Lord Jesus Christ, who art all-powerful in heaven and on earth, in this appeal I implore Thy holy name; in every time and place where there is made mention of my name, make that place holy, and glorify those that glorify Thee through my name, accepting of such persons all their offering, and all their supplication, and all their prayer. And when she had thus prayed, the Lord said to His mother: Let thy heart rejoice and be glad; for every favour and every gift has been given to thee from my Father in heaven, and from me, and from the Holy Spirit: every soul that calls upon thy name shall not be ashamed, but shall find mercy, and comfort, and support, and confidence, both in the world that now is, and in that which is to come, in the presence of my Father in the heavens. And the Lord turned and said to Peter: The time has come to begin the singing of the hymn. And Peter having begun the singing of the hymn, all the powers of the heavens responded with the Alleluiah. And then the face of the mother of the Lord shone brighter than the light, and she rose up and blessed each of the apostles with her own hand, and all gave glory to God; and the Lord stretched forth His undefiled hands, and received her holy and blameless soul. And with the departure of her blameless soul the place was filled with perfume and ineffable light; and, behold, a voice out of the heaven was heard, saying: Blessed art thou among women. And Peter, and I John, and Paul, and Thomas, ran and wrapped up her precious feet for the consecration; and the twelve apostles put her precious and holy body upon a couch, and carried it. And, behold, while they were carrying her, a certain well-born Hebrew, Jephonias by name, running against the body, put his hands upon the couch; and, behold, an angel of the Lord by invisible power, with a sword of fire, cut off his two hands from his shoulders, and made them hang about the couch, lifted up in the air. And at this miracle which had come to pass all the people of the Jews who beheld it cried out: Verily, He that was brought forth by thee is the true God, O mother of God, ever-virgin Mary. And Jephonias himself, when Peter ordered him, that the wonderful things of God might be showed forth, stood up behind the couch, and cried out: Holy Mary, who broughtest forth Christ who is God, have mercy upon me. And Peter turned and said to him: In the name of Him who was born of her, thy hands which have been taken away from thee, will be fixed on again. And immediately, at the word of Peter, the hands hanging by the couch of the Lady came, and were fixed on Jephonias. And he believed, and glorified Christ, God who had been born of her. 

And when this miracle had been done, the apostles carried the couch, and laid down her precious and holy body in Gethsemane in a new tomb. And, behold, a perfume of sweet savour came forth out of the holy sepulchre of our Lady the mother of God; and for three days the voices of invisible angels were heard glorifying Christ our God, who had been born of her. And when the third day was ended, the voices were no longer heard; and from that time forth all knew that her spotless and precious body had been transferred to paradise. 

And after it had been transferred, behold, we see Elisabeth the mother of St. John the Baptist, and Anna the mother of the Lady, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and David, singing the Alleluiah, and all the choirs of the saints adoring the holy relics of the mother of the Lord, and the place full of light, than which light nothing could be more brilliant, and an abundance of perfume in that place to which her precious and holy body had been transferred in paradise, and the melody of those praising Him who had been born of her—sweet melody, of which there is no satiety, such as is given to virgins, and them only, to hear. We apostles, therefore, having beheld the sudden precious translation of her holy body, glorified God, who had shown us His wonders at the departure of the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose prayers and good offices may we all be deemed worthy to receive, under her shelter, and support, and protection, both in the world that now is and in that which is to come, glorifying in every time and place her only-begotten Son, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Early Prayers to the Holy Virgin 

The earliest prayer that asks for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin comes from a small scrap of papyrus, dated to AD 250, written in Egyptian Greek and coming from an early Coptic Christian context. It was catalogued by the John Ryland’s Library in Great Britain in 1917, when it was acquired as a part of a large collection of fragments discovered in a cache from Luxor. 

This unique Marian prayers says - 

“Beneath thy compassion, We take refuge, O Mother of God: do not despise our petitions in time of trouble, but rescue us from dangers, only pure one, only blessed one.” 

This literary evidence shows that the term of love for the Holy Virgin, a name with especially profound theological significance in Greek, started to be used at a very early time, contrary to the insistence of some of the Syriac-speaking Antiochene fathers, who did not appreciate its nuance to Greek-speakers. This controversy would lead to one of the most violent and tragic disagreements in Christian history, and would ultimately create a schism between the Greek-speaking Church and the Syriac-speaking Church. 

The Term “Theotokos” or “God-Bearer” in the Church 

Why do we have to use the term “Theotokos”? This term seems to confuse the relationship between Created and Uncreated, and the relationship between the Holy Trinity and Jesus Christ, implying that the Godhead was born of Mary. A much better term would seem to be “Mary the Mother of Christ Who is the Second Person of the Trinity.” Why do we not use this term instead? What is the importance on insisting that the Holy Virgin “bore God”? The simple answer is that this was what Nestorius tried to insist upon, almost verbatim, when a controversy broke out between himself and St. Cyril of Alexandria. He said that the preferable term was “Mother of Christ Our God.” There were several strategic reasons why this term was not accepted by the Church, and why Orthodoxy still goes out of its way to insist upon the Greek term, “Theotokos”, as being appropriate for the Blessed Virgin out of both respect and love. 

The Fathers taught that there was only one “Hypostasis” in Christ, or that there is only one, unified reality in the Person of Christ, which is a metaphysical reality as well as a physical reality. In this united, completely God and completely Man being, there are two natures. So, the Ousiac reality of God, manifest in Three Divine Hypostatic Persons, is united in the Person of the Son to the Body of Christ from His conception, being the “causal principle” of the material being and hypostatically joined to God and not to the individual hypostatis of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

This means that the “Ousia”, the uncreated being of God, was present fully in the Incarnate Christ, and that this cannot be divided from the internal reality and being of the Holy Trinity. It is true that Christ only incarnated the Son, one of the Persons, but that does not establish an artificial boundary within the Godhead and it does not limit the communion of the Persons. 

This is why it is appropriate to say that the Virgin Mary was the “Mother of God”, because to insist that she just mothered the human person of Christ, who is united in one person of the Trinity, erects barriers within the Trinity that then create Arian conclusions. Arianism is essentially a barrier within God between the Persons that insists on causality within the nature of the Son, who ceases to be essentially co-eternal with the Father. Arians did not teach that Christ was an Angel or that Christ was the same as the rest of the created world. They just taught that, God the Father, being the ground of the Trinity, was not only the first and fountainhead of divinity, but that the other Persons were causally dependent upon Him and were the result of His choice to manifest within other Persons. They felt that this protected the Primacy and Monarchy of the Father, but what it actually did is demoted Christ, made a shared “essence” impossible, and made Christ a creation because His person was dependent upon a decision within the mind of God. Thus, practically, making Him indistinguishable from the creation, not “ex nihilo”, but a “creation ex deo.” 

We believe the Trinity to be the fundamental reality, eternally co-equal, eternally exchanging attributes and bound up in a reality of life and love that emanates uncreated light, and permeates the created reality, which is the result of God’s choice, His movement, His thought. What can be said of one Person may be said of the other Persons, and while the Father is the “Monarch”, the Trinity is synodal, in that it constantly agrees with itself, mutually submissive and motivated only by love. 

And so, it is easy to see why, with the Arian controversies fresh in everyone’s mind, how the refusal to call Mary “Theotokos” seemed like veiled Arianism, and how the Syriac Tradition, while lacking the Greek generic term for “God”, and the OT word for God, Alaha/o (Elohim), only referred to the Father, had to compensate for the problems that this caused in the Greek conciliar definitions of the Church. 

In the West Syriac Orthodox context, they just said “Yaldoh Alaho”, which originally would have meant “Mother of God the Father”, was redefined the term by teaching that “Alaho” means the Father in the OT and generically one of the members of the Trinity in the NT. The Church of the East was more conservative with language in general, and called the Blessed Virgin Mary, "Yaldah M'shiha", "Mother of the Messiah", or “Yaldah d’Alaha l’Bruna”, “Mother of God the Son.” But, ultimately, because of the chaos of the Christological controversies and the way that Arianism destroyed the trust between local Churches, the problem of division was never completely resolved, and we still have these difficulties today. 

As more of the Coptic, Armenian and Jacobean Syriac material is translated, and East Syriac Fathers become available for the first time, we can really see how the context of these linguistic, cultural and philosophical debates formed our current landscape and informs our mystical understanding of the Trinity, up and against the simplicity and philosophical clarity of the Western theological paradigm. Arianism touched on the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation in devastating ways, so in so many ways it became the “Proto-Heresy.” Once we understand Arianism in this way, so much of modern heresy and the way that various local Churches reacted and still struggle with these paradigms becomes clear. 

Summary 

At the Council of Ephesus in AD 431, which formally declared the teaching that the Blessed Virgin was the Theotokos and that she can rightfully be called the “Mater Dei” (the “Mother of God”), an important paradigm emerged that sees her as “the Seal of the Incarnation.” This council also recommends “hyper-dulia” or “extra respect” be paid to her above all other Saints, and only makes her inferior in respect to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The reason for this is because the Blessed Virgin was, indeed, absolutely essential for Christ’s role in the world, and His continuous, heavenly, salvific sacrifice for us before the Father in Heaven, in which He offers up His own blood, employs the very blood that He genetically received from the Most Holy Mother and now, through this holy blood, covers our sins, binds us to God, and imparts His life-giving grace and power. 

In love and gratefulness to this, we can all pray that lovely Marian prayer, which just echoes the greetings of the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation - “Hail Mary! The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed in the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and in the hour of our death!” And as the Byzantine East says, “You without corruption gave birth to God the Word!” We thank God for the life and example of the precious, beloved, meek and mild Mother of the Lord, the Mother of all Christians, who became the New Eve and crushed the head of the devil in her simple submission to God! 

The Collect 

O God, you have taken to yourself the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for all ages of ages. Amen.