Q&A: When Was Mary First Recognized As Mother of God?
My Protestant friends say that it is blasphemous to call Mary the Mother of God. The words are not found in the bible and it stands to reason that God cannot have a mother. When did the Catholic church invent this belief?
Question submitted by KA from Little Rock, AK
Father J. Patrick Gaffney, SMM
The Catholic church did not invent the truth that Mary is the Mother of God. It is the infallible word of Scripture. Does not the word of God tell us that Jesus is the Enfleshed Word of God? (cl, e.g., Jn 1:1). And is not Mary the Mother of Jesus? Therefore Scripture is telling us that Mary is the Mother of the Incarnate (i.e. enfleshed) Eternal Word of God.
Do we not read in Luke that Elizabeth salutes Mary as “the Mother of my Lord?” Do not the angels at Bethlehem tell us that there is born to us a savior who is “Christ the Lord?” Now check every other time that LORD is found in the infancy narrative of Luke (the first two chapters). The 24 times it is used, it always refers to GOD. It appears quite clear that by calling Jesus LORD twice in such a context, the inspired author is telling us that Jesus is the Lord GOD. Mary is his Mother. God the Word is born of Mary; Mary is the Mother of God.
Catholics and Orthodox do not say that first there is Mary and then there is God! From all eternity the Triune God is. At a moment in time, the Son (Word, Wisdom, second Person of the Trinity) is born into our human family by taking a full human nature in and through the Virgin Mary. In her, through the over-shadowing Spirit, the Infinite and Eternal Wisdom is conceived; in her womb he is carried; from her he is born on Christmas night.
At the Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) the Church expressed this fundamental scriptural truth of our Christian faith through the term, already in use, Theotokos, i.e. God-Bearer or Mother of God. The full truth of the Incarnation of the Word of God is placed in jeopardy if we do not accept that Mary is truly the Mother of God.
