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Á¦¸ñ The Excellence of Divine Motherhood(2018-12-25 Morning Mass)
ÀÛ¼ºÀÚ °ü¸®ÀÚ ÀÛ¼ºÀÏ 2018-12-26
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The Excellence of Divine Motherhood(2018-12-25  Morning Mass)


Introduction


 We are celebrating today this sentence of the creed: ¡°I believe in Jesus Christ who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary¡±. The Word of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity was conceived in the womb of the BVM on annunciation day. But this conception of Our Lord was hidden and therefore the Divine Motherhood of the BVM was hidden as well. It is on Christmas night that appeared clearly before men¡¯s eyes the eminent dignity of the BVM: She is the Mother of God and this is the principle of all her greatness. I would like to talk to you about this so that while we rejoice at the birth of our Saviour, we don¡¯t forget to congratulate His mother and to rejoice with Her.

 

Reality of the Divine Motherhood


 In the first centuries, there were some people who denied the title of Mother of God to Mary. They said that Jesus Christ was at the beginning an ordinary man and that afterwards this man became the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son. So, for some of these people, there were two persons in Christ: a human person and a Divine Person cohabitating side by side; for some others among them, the human person was destroyed and replaced by the divine Person. In any case they say that Mary could not be called the Mother of God because she was the mother of an ordinary man only. The fact that this ordinary man became God afterwards had nothing to do with her.

 


 Well, this is not the Catholic faith but a heresy: there has never been a human person in Christ, but only a Divine Person. The BVM has conceived and given birth to a child who is from the very first instant of its conception the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. In other words, the second Person of the Holy Trinity has taken his human body from the blood of the BVM, as any child takes it from his parents. And therefore Mary is in reality the mother of a Son who is God.


Certainly the BVM has not conceived the Divinity itself; certainly she has not conceived JC in His Divine Nature, she has not conceived the second Person of the Holy Trinity in His eternity. But she has conceived Him according to His human nature, according to His temporal birth.

 


 Then let us ask: is the title of ¡°Mother of God¡± for the BVM correct? Yes it is. Is really the Mother of God the one who conceives and gives birth to a person who is God. Some people said: ¡°to be called rightly the Mother of God, Mary should have conceived Christ in all his aspects, included His Divinity¡±. It is false: to be rightly called the mother of a child, it is enough to have conceived this child in the similitude of one¡¯s own nature. When the parents conceive a child, they conceive only the body of the child, not his immortal soul which is created directly by God: however their parenthood is over the whole child whom they have conceived in the same human nature than theirs. In the same way, the fact that Mary conceived Jesus in his human nature, that she gave to Jesus a same human nature than hers, is enough to give her rightly the title of Mother of God, although she did not conceive Him in his Divine nature

 

Excellence of the Divine motherhood


The Divine Motherhood is the greatest title of the BVM and the reason for which she is greater than all other creatures. Let us explain. The closer you are to the fire, the warmer you become. In the spiritual realm, it is a bit the same: the closer you are to God the Source of all perfections, the holier and the more perfect you become. By becoming the real mother of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Mary has acquired a very close and intimate relationship with Him: no other creature can compete with her. Mary, because of her Divine motherhood, receives from God more graces, more perfection than any other creature.


 Divine motherhood puts the BVM at a level which surpasses all others. There are several levels or orders in the world: there is at the bottom the natural order: it means the order of the laws ruling the nature as God has created it: the rotation of the earth around the sun, the necessity of eating and drinking to live, etc.... Above it, there is the supernatural order, that is to say all the laws ruling our vocation to share in the Divine life and the Divine happiness. When we have sanctifying grace, we become the children of God by adoption, and this is totally above the natural capacities of our human nature. Above this, there is the order of the Hypostatic union, that is to say all the laws ruling the union of humanity and Divinity in Jesus Christ. Christ is not the adoptive child of God by sanctifying grace like us: He is much more than this: He is God Himself. And this puts Him above all other creatures, at a special level which we call the Hypostatic Order, at the junction between humanity and Divinity. The laws of this order are very mysterious to us: they form what we call the mystery of Incarnation.

 

Mary belongs to that order since this union of the Divinity and the Humanity of Christ was done in her womb. And that is why some theologian said: ¡°Mary has reached the borders of the Divinity¡±. And another said: ¡°God could make a bigger world or a bigger heaven, but He could not make a greater Mother of God¡±.

 

Conclusion


So today, let us not forget to congratulate and to praise Mary for her divine motherhood. On Christmas night, she gave birth to the Saviour and immediately offered Him to the Father and to us, because she knew perfectly that this her Divine Son had come to die on the cross for the remission of our sins. There is in Mary a physical dignity because she conceived physically the human nature of Christ, but there is in her more especially a moral and spiritual dignity because she cooperated with the all strength of her will to the work of Incarnation and of Redemption.


O Mary, today we want to praise God because of you, because He has ¡°regarded the humility of His handmaid¡±, because He ¡°has done great things in you¡±, and with all the past generations ¡°we want to call you Blessed¡± (Lc 1;48).


Fr. Demornex