An Apologetical Explanation of

Mary, The Mother Of God

Why do we call the Blessed Virgin Mary the Mother of God?

The angel said to [Mary], “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, / and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; / therefore the child to be born will be called holy, / the Son of God.”  (Lk 1:35)

God sent forth his Son, born of a woman.  (Gal 4:4)

The Blessed Virgin Mary is honored as the Mother of God because she conceived and gave birth to Christ, who is the incarnation of God the Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Since the first centuries of Christianity, the Church customarily has regarded the Blessed Virgin Mary to be the Mother of God for a simple, logical reason: By the power of the Holy Spirit, she conceived Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Since the divine Person, God the Son, assumed, or took on, human nature, she is the Mother of God in the fullest since:  “What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ” (CCC 487).  The Church solemnly defined this belief at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus AD 431.

But how can a mere mortal be the Mother of the eternal God who has always existed?  Consider how we speak of human motherhood.  Our own mothers supply our human nature, our physical bodies; yet, it is God who supplies our spirit and soul.  We do not distinguish between the two: a mother gives birth not only to our nature but to our entire person.

In regard to Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary supplied his humanity and is thus the Mother of Jesus.  But Christ has both a human nature and a divine nature.  Nevertheless, she gave birth to the one Person who is Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man.  She is rightly called the Mother of God even though she herself is not the source of his divinity.  (Cf. CCC 496)

This doctrine is taught implicitly in Scripture, especially in those passages where the Blessed Virgin Mary is called the “Mother of Jesus,” or the “Mother of Christ”—perhaps most strikingly when St. Elizabeth greets her with the following words:  “Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1:43, emphasis added).  Her identity as the Mother of God is intimately linked to Christ’s own identity as fully man and fully God, the Son of God.  (Cf. CCC 509)

The Catechism addresses this question in paragraph 495.

The contents of this page are Copyright © 2014 Rev. James Socias (of the Midwest Theological Forum). These apologetics are reproduced with written consent of said copyright holder for St Patricks Parish, Jaffrey, NH website only. Reproduction of any sort must be approved directly by said copyright holder.

To get a hardcopy of these Apologetics or the Didache Bible please visit the Midwest Theological Forum (publisher) at: http://www.theologicalforum.org