January 6, 2020
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God / World Day of Peace on January 1, 2020, at St. Austin Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67; Galatians 4:4-7; and Luke 2:16-21.
The Church celebrates New Year’s Day as both the World Day of Peace and the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.
So, what’s the big deal about Mary being the Mother of God? Well, it’s a huge deal. This was the main declaration of the Church’s third ecumenical council, the Council of Ephesus, held in the year 431. The logic behind the declaration is relatively simple: Jesus has a human nature and a divine nature, combined in one person, and since Mary gave birth to the whole person of Jesus, she is the mother of God. But the process by which this was declared is one my favorite stories about the complexity of Church history. (One of my main goals today is to encourage you to learn more.1 Also, I promised back on January 1, 2017 that I would preach about this on an upcoming New Year’s Day!) And yes, I promise, before the homily is over, I’ll tie this back to the World Day of Peace.
In this upcoming year, may we grow ever more aware of God’s mercy, and may each of us become better agents of God’s mercy for others.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend the divine liturgy of one of the Eastern Churches, I highly recommend that you go. The icons, the chanting, the incense, the bells – it’s a very beautiful experience. (And you will find the Roman Catholic liturgy to be quite short in comparison!) You’ll notice that our Eastern brothers and sisters are big on using a certain Greek word over and over again: Theotokos. That’s a title for Mary. We usually translate Theotokos as “God bearer,” but we can also translate it as the title of today’s solemnity, “Mary, the Mother of God.”
The term Theotokos appears in liturgical prayers as early as the 3rd century, but Mary was not officially declared by the Church to be the Theotokos until the 5th century at the Council of Ephesus. But to leave it there is to gloss over one of the most fascinating chapters in Church history.
Back in the 5th century, issues of church and state were much more intertwined than they are today. And so it was that Theodosius, the Emperor of the Roman Empire, selected a monk named Nestorius to become Patriarch of the capital city, Constantinople. Nestorius, the new patriarch of Constantinople, seemed to be a good choice, both politically and religiously. He was known for his asceticism. He was a skilled preacher with a very distinctive voice. He was highly educated. And he reminded people of his great predecessor 20 years before, St. John Chrysostum.
Nestorius might have been a holy man, but he turned out to be a disaster in the very public role of patriarch. He did a poor job in picking which battles to fight, and he wasn’t the best at explaining his reasoning on unsettled issues of theology. In the fifth century, the Church was still wrestling with how Jesus was both God and human. Nestorius entered into the fray by declaring that Mary should be understood not as the Theotokos, the Mother of God, but merely as the Christotokos, the Mother of Christ. We may scratch out heads today, wondering about this distinction. But at the time, this lit a powder keg. And so, in the summer of the year 431, we have bishops rushing to Ephesus on the orders of Emperor, holding rival councils while paid mobs are rioting on the streets of the city. The ugliness exposes a lot of divisions in Christendom: divisions between the theological schools of Antioch and Alexandria, divisions between the patriarchs Cyril and Nestorius, and divisions between Pope Celestine I and the Emperor Theodosius. Most surprising of all, it exposes the ambitions of Theodosius’ sister, Pulcheria, who sought to gain authority for herself by declaring that she was a spiritual “bride of Christ.” (Nestorius supposedly retorted, “You!? You have given birth to Satan!” Like I said, he wasn’t good at politics.2)
So, the Council of Ephesus declares that Mary is indeed what everyone had been saying for centuries: the Mother of God. But as far as settling the open debates on the nature of Christ, it actually moves the Church backwards. One of the many results of the Council of Ephesus is the first major schism in Christianity. Persian Christians, influenced by Zoroastrianism, reject the council. They form a separate church that still exists today, called the Assyrian Church of the East.
So, at this point, you may think that celebrating the World Day of Peace on the same day that we celebrate Mary as the Mother of God is highly ironic. Luke tells us that Mary – hearing that a multitude of the heavenly host had appeared to shepherds, instructing them to come to the stable to worship her newborn baby – that Mary “kept all these things in her heart.” Mary, the Queen of Peace, had simply said “yes” to the angel Gabriel, and now, 430 years later, debates about her role in salvation history had led to political intrigue, bloodshed, excommunication, and schism on three continents.
If the earthly leaders of the Body of Christ behaved this violently in 431 AD, is there any hope for peace in our world in 2020? It’s especially sad when you realize the parallels between the crises of 431 and the crises of 2020 – waves of violence are once again taking place in that part of the world, armed groups still wrap themselves in the banner of religion to carry out selfish desires, and political leaders still make outrageous claims about their personal piety.
Perhaps we need to reflect on Gabriel’s reassurance to Mary when she was invited to become the Mother of God: “nothing will be impossible for God.” God works in mysterious ways – and some of the bitter divisions of the year 431 have been resolved over time. In the year 540, at the Council of Chalcedon, the Church finally resolved the understanding of Jesus Christ as both true God and a true human being. Modern scholarship has revealed that Nestorius actually had some salient points in the ongoing Christological debates. And last, but not least, in 1994, Pope Saint John Paul II and the Catholicos Mar Dinkha IV, the leader of the Assyrian Church of the East – that split off in 431 – issued a joint Christological declaration. They both endorsed that it is theologically sound to declare Mary by any of the following three titles: “Mother of God,” “Mother of Christ,” or “Mother of Christ, our God and Savior.” Both churches pledge to continue working towards achieving full communion, acknowledging – and I quote – “The divisions brought about [at the Council of Ephesus] were due in large part to misunderstandings.”
As 2019 gives way to 2020, there is much that stands in the way of world peace. But let us, like Mary, the Mother of God, keep the manger scene in our hearts. Everyone gathered around the Christ child – Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds – had received messages from angels, and angels are messengers of God. We who are gathered around this Eucharistic table – we also receive messages from God. And if we are open to God’s invitations to bring peace to the world in both big ways and small ways, nothing will be impossible for God.
Footnotes:
- You can learn more in Kenneth G. Holum’s delightful book, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). ↩
- Ibid. ↩