Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
Why is this solemnity so important that the Church starts each new year off with it?
Well, for one, Mary's title, "Mother of God," encapsulates every aspect of Our Lady's story - from her Immaculate Conception to her fiat at the Annunciation; from the birth of Christ to her faithful presence at the foot of the Cross; from her Assumption to her role as Queen of Heaven and Earth and our Blessed Mother.
But as mind-blowingly incredible as all of that is, it's not even the most important thing about this solemnity!
It's what the title says about Christ Himself that makes this solemnity so central to our Faith.
Why?
Because as I explain in this snippet from a Science of Sainthood mini-series on Mary, it speaks to the mystery of the Incarnation - what we're still celebrating in this Christmas season.
<Want to watch the video instead of reading? Click Here.>
And that's why every person who calls themselves a Christian must recognize and give honor to Our Lady as the Mother of God.
Because Mary is not just the Mother of Christ, she's the Mother of God.
She is the Theotokos, a Greek word that literally means God Bearer.
And realize - this isn't a new title.
From the first centuries of the Church, you can read Fathers and theologians like St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and St. Alexander calling Mary "Mother of God" or the equivalent, "Mother of my Lord."
And they got it right out of Scripture.
Elizabeth calls Mary the 'Mother of my Lord' in Luke 1:48, when she says, "Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
And this tradition of calling Mary the Mother of my Lord, or Mother of God, was continued in the tradition of the Church. You even see it in ancient prayers like the Sub Tuum, which dates back to the third century at least (and it's probably older):
We fly to your patronage, O Holy Mother of God. Despise not our petitions and our necessities, but deliver us from all dangers, O ever glorious and blessed Virgin.
And this is all pretty logical when you think about it.
If Jesus was God and Mary was his mother, then that made her the "Mother of God". Pretty straightforward, right?
At the risk of sounding a little more technical, this kind of logic is based on a principle called the communication of idioms.
What in the world is that, you ask?
Well, basically, it's a principle that indicates that whatever you say about either one of Christ's two natures can be said of Christ Himself.
If Christ has a human nature, He must be human. If He has a divine nature, He must be divine.
His two natures - the divine nature and the human nature - are united in Him.
You can't separate them out. He is one divine Person.
So even though the Trinity is eternal with no beginning and no end, we can still say that God the Son was born in Bethlehem and died on the Cross at Calvary.
Now in spite of all of this, if you're in a discussion with one of our separated brethren (i.e. Protestants) about all of this and you try to make this point, they're just going to look at you cross-eyed.
For most, Mary's role as Theotokos is not even on the radar, and even if it is, to them it smacks loudly of heresy. So if you ever get pushback on this doctrine, just politely point out that historically, Trinity-professing Protestants accept the first seven ecumenical councils, starting with the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, and ending with the second Council of Nicaea in 787 AD.
One of those seven accepted councils, the third one, was the ecumenical council of Ephesus in 431 AD, and it was a huge one for Our Lady.
It was at that fifth century council that Mary's title and identity as "Mother of God" was officially proclaimed.
That council condemned a heretic named Nestorius, the patriarch of Constantinople, who was claiming that while Mary could be the "Mother of Christ", she could not be the Theotokos, the "Mother of God."
Now, realize that Mary wasn't really the person in Nestorius's theological crosshairs.
He was actually attacking Christ.
He didn't believe what we proclaim in the Creed every week in Sunday Mass, that Christ is consubstantial with the Father. He didn't think that humanity and divinity could be joined. His take was that there had to be a distinction between the humanity and divinity of Christ.
You see, Nestorius believed that anything human was necessarily corrupted by original sin. That's why he said Mary could be the Mother of Christ, the man, but not the Mother of the God-Man.
As we know, his teaching was condemned.
And in order to safeguard the truth of the fact that Jesus Christ is one divine Person with two natures, one human and one divine, the council declared Mary to be the Theotokos, the Mother of God.
And it totally makes sense when you think about it.
Yes, Jesus has two natures, one human and one divine, as we said, but He is one Person, all God and all man, who has a real mom named Mary.
And a mother doesn't give birth to a nature. As St. Cyril points out, she gives birth to a person.
Think about it, you don't see pictures of a baby's nature up on the mantle at Grandma and Grandpa's house. You see actual children.
Mary gave birth to the actual Person of Jesus, who is both all God and all man.
She gave birth to God.
If you deny that, you're denying the divinity of Jesus Christ...and that's something no Christian ever wants to do.
God bless and Happy Solemnity!
Matthew
P.S. Join me in honoring Our Lady on pilgrimage to Fatima, Spain, & Lourdes in March 2026! Watch a short video about the trip!
