Sancta Maria Dei Genetrix (Θεοτόκος)

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Amici, Americani, Compatriotae,

The readings for Vigil Mass of the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of God on New Year's Eve included the following:

• The Priestly Benediction in Numbers 6:22-27
• Nations Called to Praise God in Psalm 67:2-8
• Adoption as a Child of God in Galatians 4:4-7
• The Shepherds Visit and Jesus' Circumcision in Luke 2:16-21

Today used to be called the Feast of the Circumcision. Father Hunwicke at his Mutual Enrichment blog has a great explanation of how this Feast Day came to be subsumed into the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The declaration that She is the Dei Genetrix (or Θεοτόκος in Greek) had been definitively made at the Church Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. This declaration was based on the prior work of St. Cyril of Alexandria who wrote in his third letter to the heretic Nestorius:

Confessing the Word to be united with the flesh according to the hypostasis, we worship one Son and Lord, Jesus Christ. We do not divide him into parts and separate man and God as though they were united with each other [only] through a unity of dignity and authority... nor do we name separately Christ the Word from God, and in similar fashion, separately, another Christ from the woman, but we know only one Christ, the Word from God the Father with his own flesh... But we do not say that the Word from God dwelt as in an ordinary human born of the holy virgin... we understand that, when he became flesh, not in the same way as he is said to dwell among the saints do we distinguish the manner of the indwelling; but he was united by nature and not turned into flesh... There is, then, one Christ and Son and Lord, not with the sort of conjunction that a human being might have with God as in a unity of dignity or authority; for equality of honor does not unite natures. For Peter and John were equal to each other in honor, both of them being apostles and holy disciples, but the two were not one. Nor do we understand the manner of conjunction to be one of juxtaposition, for this is insufficient in regard to natural union.... Rather we reject the term 'conjunction' as being inadequate to express the union... [T]he holy virgin gave birth in the flesh to God united with the flesh according to hypostasis, for that reason we call her Θεοτόκος ... If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is, in truth, God, and therefore that the holy virgin is Θεοτόκος (for she bore in a fleshly manner the Word from God become flesh), let him be anathema.

So today we remember that the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth to True God and True Man. He is both our Divine High Priest (hence the Priestly Benediction in the reading from Numbers) and our human brother True Man (hence his circumcision according to the law in Luke). Indeed, as the Nicean Creed states:

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.