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Question
Dear Father Angelo,
I would like to ask you a question, even if I don’t think it has a simple answer.
I would like to point out that any lack of respect for Madonna is far from me.
In the recitation of the Hail Mary when we say “Mother of God” I feel that I am saying something that is not completely true, because God cannot have a mother.
I know that Mary is the mother of Jesus who is also God but I think I am not wrong if I say that she is the mother only of his humanity even if this is perfectly united with divinity.
I know well that it was in the distant Council of Ephesus in 431 that Mary, Mother of God was defined (even if the delegation from Rome and the Syrian bishops was not awaited and it was almost a stretch from only the bishops who were followers of Cyril of Alexandria) and therefore for Catholics and Orthodox this definition is not a problem.
But for the brothers of the Reformation it is and also a source of division.
I don’t want to be a Nestorian but would it not be appropriate to modify the Hail Mary prayer by saying for example: “Holy Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus, true God and true man, pray for us…
Thank you and congratulations for your answers which I read with great interest.
Raffaele
Priest’s response
Dear Raffaele,
1. we are composed of the soul and body.
Our parents created the body. The soul was created immediately by God.
Yet we do not say of our mother that she is the mother only of our body. But she is the mother of our person.
2. Similarly for Madonna: she is the mother of God as He assumed human nature.
The child that Mary generated was God, although she did not give him a soul, much less the divine Person.
Therefore Jesus, and not just his body, was her son.
3. You tell me that the Reformed (Protestants) struggle to understand this.
But for Luther the Madonna is the Mother of God.
He recognizes this openly and effortlessly in the commentary on the Magnificat where he calls the “Holy Virgin” (these are his words) “Mother of God” 28 times.
Here are some examples: “As the mother of God she is elevated above all men, nevertheless, she remains so simple and modest that she does not have even the smallest handmaid beneath her.”
And again: “Subsequently, the mother of God – after having praised her God and Savior with a simple and pure spirit without becoming presumptuous because of her possessions, but singing the goodness of him as is appropriate – passes, according to a correct order, to praise his works and his goods.”
And: “O blessed Virgin and Mother of God, although you were miserable and despised, God turned his gaze on you and with the richness of his grace he worked great things in you; you were not worthy of any of them, yet God’s grace was rich and abundant, surpassing all your merits.”
And finally: “The great things are none other than this, that she became the Mother of God; in this work she is given so many great benefits that no one can understand them. For from this comes to her all honor, all blessedness, and in every human generation her singular position above all, since no one like her had from the Heavenly Father a child and such a child. And herself cannot give him a name due to his immense greatness and cannot do anything other than overflow with love, since they are great things that cannot be expressed or measured. Therefore with one word, calling her Mother of God, all her honor was understood; no one can say anything greater about her or to her, even if she had as many tongues as there are leaves and grass, the stars in the sky and the sand of the sea. The heart must also reflect what it means to be Mother of God.”
After all, didn’t Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, say: “Why do I have the mother of my Lord (God) to come to me?”.
4. I thank you for the opportunity you have given me to clarify Luther’s thoughts on this point.
On this point, many attribute to him statements that are contrary to his thoughts, or at least to what he effortlessly recognized in the Commentary on the Magnificat.
I remember you to the Lord and bless you.
Father Angelo