Our Lady in October

In the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, we celebrate in the month of October the honour of the one human being who was closest to the Saviour and Redeemer of Man,
the one human person more intimate with Jesus Christ, the God-Man, than any other in all of history and eternity.

She bore Him in her spotless womb, nursed Him at her breast, tenderly cared for Him as a child, raised Him, taught Him, instructed Him, protected and nurtured Him, watched Him teach, preach, and perform miracles; she suffered the pain of seeing Him betrayed, rejected, executed, and finally she enjoyed the beauty and splendour of His resurrection from the dead - yes, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first and ultimate disciple of Christ, the first believer in the Lord, the first and greatest Christian of all, and now the chiefest Saint in Heaven - the Mother of our Lord, God and Saviour.

Like Jesus Christ, who perfectly fulfilled the Ten Commandments, we in the orthodox Christian Tradition honour in a special way the Virgin Mother of Christ as the Mother of our Lord and our Mother: ‘Honour thy father and thy mother.’ Jesus perfectly respected and loved His heavenly Father and His earthly Mother - and our unbroken history of prayer and devotion does the same.

Orthodox Christianity from the beginning of the Faith has honoured and remembered the Virgin Mary as the human Mother of the Incarnate God.

‘Born of the Virgin Mary’ (Apostles Creed)
‘Incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man’ (Nicene Creed)

The Undivided Catholic Church honoured and venerated the Blessed Virgin Mary with special feasts in her memory on 15th August and 8th December; Anglicans do today because we too are members of the Holy Catholic Church and we agree with the ancient Christian Tradition ‘when the Church was one,’ the Faith held by the whole Church, East and West, for the first thousand years of the Christian dispensation.

The Church has a special place in her heart for the Virgin Mary because she is so close to Jesus, the closest human being to Him on earth and in heaven.

No person in the history of salvation has been more misunderstood or more made the subject of confusion than Our Lord’s Mother. No one person has been more controversial, loved, or hated than the Holy Virgin. But she, the humble Handmaid of the Lord, remains a quiet witness to the glory of her Son. Mary, with simplicity and docility, did the will of God without question, believing, trusting and hoping in the Lord: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.’ She is the Perfect Woman, the supreme Exemplar.

The Holy Catholic Church honours, venerates, reveres the Blessed Virgin, but never worships her - for adoration or worship is due to God alone. The Mother of God is loved and honoured because:

1. she gave birth to God in the Incarnation, and,
2. because she is the ultimate Christian, completely faithful, obedient to God.

All devotion given to the Blessed Mother redounds to the glory of her Divine Son, Jesus Christ. All devotion and honour given to the Virgin Mary glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary - the Incarnate Lord who assumed human nature from her womb. His Body was taken from her body. Mary is honoured by Christians universally in all ages, times and places, because she was chosen by God to be His Mother, she was selected by God to be the agent of the Incarnation.

All devotion and honour offered to Our Lord’s Mother is Christocentric, that is, Christ-centred. Mary points us to her Divine Son, who is Our Lord and God. He is Mary’s Saviour, and ours. In her, God was made Man. Mary was not simply a vessel or a channel through which God became incarnate; she was a true Mother to Him, not only providing a human nature, but offering Him all the love and commitment a Mother gives her Son.

‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.’
Jesus is the saving Lord who has redeemed Mary and all men.

‘Whatever He saith unto you, do it.’ The Immaculate Virgin directs us to her Son.

Mary is the touchstone of orthodoxy; she secures the divine truth that God was made Man, God was incarnate, God assumed human nature. Mary is the supreme witness and testimony to the truth of the Incarnation.

She is Theotokos, Mother of God, Birthgiver of God, God-Bearer, as defined by the Third Ecumenical Council of the Undivided Church held at Ephesus (AD 431), which Council proclaimed as dogma the truth that Jesus Christ is One Divine Person Incarnate, with a true human nature.

Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ is God
Mary is the Mother of God

Our Lady is not the cause or generator of the Divine Nature, the Deity of Christ, for that would be absurd, but she is the human Mother of the One Divine Person of the Son who assumed human nature in her womb. Her divine maternity, her birthgiving of God, is the essence of our salvation. The truth of Mary as Mother of God teaches and safeguards the dogma, the divinely-revealed truth, of the Incarnation.

The Church venerates the Blessed Virgin as:

1. THE NEW EVE: Mary reverses the disobedience of the first Eve by accepting her vocation to become the Mother of Christ. The Second Eve fulfils what the first Eve failed to do - she lovingly obeys God’s perfect and holy will. ‘I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word.’ As Saint Irenaeus of Lyons says of her: 'By her obedience, Mary unlooses the knot tied by the disobedience of Eve.’‘Death by Eve, life by Mary’ says Saint Jerome. Mary is the Woman of Genesis 3.15, the Woman whose Seed will crush the head of the serpent even as He Himself is bruised. The Holy Virgin is the new Mother of all the living (Genesis 3.20). She is the Mother of all who live in Jesus Christ, presented as Mother to the Church, which is represented by the beloved disciple by Our Lord, in Saint John 19: ‘Behold thy Mother.'‘Mary conceived Jesus in her heart by faith before she ever conceived Him bodily in her womb’ (Saint Augustine). Our Lady is the perfectly obedient Christian, the model and pattern of the Christian life.

2. THE MOTHER OF GOD: Overshadowed by the Holy Ghost as the ancient temple was overshadowed by the shekinah cloud of God’s glory, Mary, the Temple of God and the dwelling-place of the Eternal Word, conceives and gives birth to Him Who is God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. She gives our human nature to God the Word, who assumes our nature and therefore redeems it.
‘God can only save that which He assumes.’ Saint Gregory of Nazianzus
‘God became man so that man may become God.’ Saint Athanasius

And 3. THE ICON OF THE CHURCH: According to universal tradition, Mary experiences by anticipation what the whole Church, the Body of Christ, will experience on the Last Day. Her life of grace, her death and resurrection have already been consummated, a sign of the eschatological hope of the whole Church. Mary represents at every turn the Church of Jesus Christ. She is the Bride of God, the Virgin Daughter of Sion, the personification of the Church wedded to the Lord, a chaste Virgin Bride. In the holy icons, she is portrayed as the Church, standing upright before the Lord in prayer, intercessor before the Throne of Grace on which her Son reigns, being herself the Throne of God, the Ark of the New Testament, the Bearer of the Eternal Word. ‘Blessed is she who hears the word of God and keeps it.’ Our Lady is the Sign and Promise of the Church's salvation.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.