Marie de Nazareth
To Jesus, through Mary
The Byzantine Church celebrates the Mother of God in the day after Christmas.[1]
After worshiping the God made man born a little child for our salvation, with the angels, the Magi and the shepherds; today it is right to pay our respects to his Mother, the Most Holy Virgin Mary. The Church presents her to us next to her child in the grotto, both as God's chosen instrument, prepared by him for generations for the accomplishment of the great mystery of his incarnation, and also as the "New Eve," the first and most prominent representative of the renewed human race.
Excerpts from some liturgical texts:[2]
Kondakion:
The one begotten before the dawn by the Father, without a mother in heaven, without a father is born of you on earth today;
A star brings the good news to the Magi,
While the shepherds join the Angels
In singing your pure childbearing,
O Virgin filled with grace by God.
Ikos:
"The mystical vine having produced without toil the Grape of Life, as on branches, held him in her arms, saying: 'You are my fruit, you are my life, you are my God, by you I have learned that I remain what I was; for seeing that the seal of my virginity wasn't broken, I proclaim that you are the unchangeable Word become flesh.
I did not experience the sowing and I know that you freed me from corruption, for I am still pure after you left my womb: as you found it, you left it.
Therefore all creation shares my jubilation and shouts to me: Rejoice, O Virgin filled with grace by God.'"
Only one Person is born from her, the man-God (Theanthropos): without a mother according to his divine nature and without a father according to his human nature. He so tightly unites what was separated by an unbridgeable gulf that, without being blurred, the properties of divine nature and those of human nature trade off within him in an inexpressible way. Just as, when one throws a piece of iron in the fire, the fire receives from the iron solidity and iron is covered by the fire's heat and light, in the same manner here, Divinity voluntarily suffers the weakness of the flesh and humanity is clothed with God's glory. This is why we can rightfully celebrate the Most Holy Virgin as truly being the Mother of God (Theotokos)[3].
For the baby lying in the manger is not a mere man called to some day receive Divine Grace as a reward for his virtues, like the Saints or the Prophets, a man chosen by God or even a deified (theophoric) man. He is truly the Word, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, who took humanity upon himself, to renew it, recreate it and restore in himself the image of God which had been tarnished and deformed by sin.
The Mother of God is the spiritual paradise of the "Second Adam," the Temple of the Divinity, the Bridge that joins earth to Heaven, the Ladder that God uses to come down on the earth, and which man in turn uses to climb to Heaven. She is now more venerable than the Cherubim, Seraphim and all the heavenly powers. Her womb appeared "vaster than heaven" by providing a shelter for Christ, for it is henceforth the God's Throne.
Thanks to her, man has been elevated to a higher state than the Angels and the glory of the Divinity shines forth in the human body.
Before such a great mystery, the human mind falters and opts to bow in silence and faith, "for where Gods wills it, the order of nature is defeated."[4]
With Joseph, the Silent One, illuminated by the strange shining light in the darkness of the grotto, God contemplates the All-Holy seated, peaceful and radiant near the Child she had wrapped herself and laid in the manger.
There is no trace of the pains of labor and the fatigue that follows in her, as happens to other women: for it was fitting that she who, a virgin in her soul and body, did not conceive through pleasure, would not deliver her child in pain either.
Virgin before she conceived, virgin during child-birth, and virgin forever after the Savior's birth, she announced to women the joy and liberation from the curse placed on Eve, the first mother, on the day of the transgression (Gn 3:16).
A new way of life opened up for human nature, because God chose virginity to be born bodily in this world. It is through virginity that he wishes to appear and grow in a spiritual way in the soul of each Christian who will model his or her conduct after the Mother of God.
[1] Excerpt from: http://calendrier.egliseorthodoxe.com/sts/stsdecembre/dec26.html
[2] Excerpt from: Guillaume Denis, Le Spoutnik: Nouveau Synecdimos, Diaconie Apostolique, Parme 1997; Paris 2001, p. 858
[3] Excerpt from: http://calendrier.egliseorthodoxe.com/sts/stsdecembre/dec26.html
[4] This feast of the Mother of God was probably established to confound the Nestorians, who denied her the title of Theotokos, alleging that she had given birth to a mere man anointed (christ) with God's grace, like the other prophets or holy men.
[5] St Gregory the Theologian, Discourse 38 on the Nativity.
By F. Breynaert