The Mother of God and the Mystical Theology of Childbirth - Molly Caliger

Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote, “Properly understood, Mariology is . . . the ‘locus theologicus’ par excellence of Christian anthropology.”^[1]  In a different article, Schmemann made the following profound statement regarding the place of Mary in understanding creation: “She—Mary—is the ultimate ‘doxa’ of creation, its response to God. She is the climax, the personification, the affirmation of the ultimate destiny of all creation: that God may be finally all in all, may fill all things with himself. The world is the ‘receptacle’ of his glory, and in this it is ‘feminine.’ And in the present ‘era,’ Mary is the sign, the guarantee that this is so, that in its mystical depth the world is already achieving this destiny.”^[2]

Without Mary, a theology of the human person remains abstract and theoretical.^[3] Karl Rahner^[4] replied, when asked what he thought was the reason for the decline in Marian devotion: “Too many Christians, whatever their religious obedience may be, tend to make Christianity an ideology, an abstraction. And abstractions do not need a mother.”^[5]  The Theotokos makes Christianity tangible in part because Mary was a woman, an embodied human person, with whose humanity one may identify. Women can identify with Mary as the prototypical mother; men can identify with her as the model of what it means to become a theophoros, or bearer-of-God. As the “ultimate ‘doxa’ of creation” she “informs” all of life.

CLICK HERE to Download the full pdf

 

^[1]A. Schmemann, "Mary, the Archetype of Mankind," The University of Dayton Review, 11, no. 3 (Spring, 1975): 83.

^[2]See “On Mariology in Orthodoxy,” Marian Library Studies (New Series) 2 (1970), 31.

^[3] Fr. Donald Calloway, Theology of the Body and Marian Dogmas, Part II, http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/2005/09/theology-of-the-body-and-marian-dogmas-part-ii/

^[4] Karl Rahner, S.J. (March 5, 1904 – March 30, 1984), was a German Jesuit priest and theologian who, alongside Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthazar, and Yves Congar, is considered one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century.

^[5] Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens, “Mary and the World of Today,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition) June 15, 1972. p.4. The original article by Suenens appeared as “Marie et le monde d’aujourd’hui,”  in La Documentation Catholique (3 Octobre 1971), 878-880.