Why the Church Begins the Year Celebrating Mary, the Mother of God

Nestorius was a fifth-century heretic. He rejected the title “Theotokos” because of his underlying (and deficient) Christology. Catholic theology teaches that Jesus Christ is one person who has two natures — divine and human. Jesus is completely God and completely man by virtue of two, complete natures. But Jesus is not two people; he is one person. 

Nestorius rejected that teaching. According to him, Mary is “mother of Jesus” the man but not “mother of God.” 

Nestorius’ position is schizophrenic, turning Jesus into two persons — one divine, one human. The early heretics who held to such views basically adopted positions akin to the ancient Gnostics who, regarding the body as evil, sought to escape it. The almost universal common thread running through the early heresies in Christianity was an effort to deny some aspect of Jesus’ humanity, making that humanity in some way incomplete or inoperative. Put simply, all those visions founder on the clear teaching of Scripture that Jesus was “a man like us in all things but sin” (Heb 2:17).

Because Mary’s son is truly one person — “true God and true man” as the Council of Chalcedon would later teach — the Person to whom Mary gave birth was both fully human and fully divine. And because he is both, she is “Mother of God.”

“Nature” is, after all, something of an abstract concept. Because we all have human “nature,” we share common characteristics of humanity, e.g., being subject to space and time, being flesh and spirit and, since the Fall, being weakened as a result of sin. But we do not encounter abstract “natures” running down the street. We only meet real persons with human natures (because there are no nature-less persons). So why would we think Mary gave birth to an abstraction?

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Why the Church Begins the Year Celebrating Mary, the Mother of God

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If Jesus is not true God, he cannot save us. He’s a wise teacher, a gentle model, and maybe an all-round-good-guy, but he’s not God and, if he’s not, he’s as impotent as every other human being to save us. 

If Jesus is not true man, he cannot save us. He may be the Almighty God, but he cannot stand in for, represent, or do anything in our name. God’s relation to us would be wholly extrinsic. But God wants us involved in the work of our redemption.

Either the person Jesus is “true God and true man” — and Mary is the mother of that person, or Christmas is a lie.

Catholic teaching has held together the mystery of “one person/two natures” from the beginning. That is why, already at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431, the council fathers called Our Lady what we celebrate today: “Theotokos, Mother of God.”

These are not just ancient debates. What we say about Christology also expresses what we believe about human anthropology, who we are. Our modern culture often divides the human person from human nature, reducing our nature — which is an integral part of our humanity — to something thought to be “subpersonal,” instrumental, subject to manipulation. Catholic theology resists this because what our quasi-Gnostic mentality calls “subpersonal” is actually quite personal, and since persons should be loved and not used, attacks on human nature are hardly “loving.” They are attacks on the human person, integrally considered. St. John Paul II worked tirelessly to emphasize that truth.

Today’s feast is represented in the 15th-century icon “The Nativity,” prayed by Andrei Rublev. In the Orthodox tradition, sacred images of icons are not “painted,” “made,” or “created,” but they are written and “prayed,” trusting that God’s inspiration is guiding the earthly hand. Rublev prayed this icon for the Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow.

Like medieval Western art, icons do not adhere to the simple canons of space and time that “realistic art” does. Because an icon speaks of spiritual realities, its depictions gather multiple symbols, concepts, and events together to express the spiritual truth the icon represents. Icons are a glimpse at heavenly realities, and our human understanding of heaven is limited. Because icons are a glimpse of heaven, this is typically why they are golden and limited to spiritual realities, without added “extras” like landscapes or temporal scenes. 

In the “Theotokos” icon, the Mother of God is front and center. She is the largest person in the icon, on her birthing bed. Her Son, wrapped in swaddling clothes, is in the adjacent manger, animals closest to him, angels above him. The manger is in a cave, symbolizing the darkness of human sinfulness that, in entering this world, Jesus comes to save us from. The shepherds approach on the right, passing by a plant that Orthodox commentators say is a “Jesse Tree,” affirming Jesus’ Davidic lineage. In the upper left, the three Wise Men are also approaching. Help and assistance is also found on the right: in the upper right, angels adore and wait to minister, in the lower right, Orthodox commentators say are human midwives. Where that notion would come from, given the abandonment of Mary and Joseph in overbooked Bethlehem, I cannot say. Furthermore, since tradition holds that Mary’s giving birth was painless (since pain in childbirth is presented in Scripture (Gn 3:16) as part of the punishment of sin, i.e., that nature and even one’s body rebels against and resists the person), one further wonders where this Orthodox notion may have come from. In the bottom left is Joseph, somewhat isolated since his role is that of foster father, not father. Again, some Orthodox commentators say that the figure adjacent to him is a devil, tempting his pride about his limited role in these events.

Rublev is honored by art historians for being the start of a new and distinctive style into Russian icons, one softer and less severe, particularly in color. Perhaps his best-known icon in the Western world is the “Icon of the Holy Trinity,” in which the three Persons are represented by the three angels mentioned (Gn 18:1-13) as visitors in Abraham’s tent who promise that, within a year, Sara and Abraham would have a son. 

The Church calls her sons and daughters at this beginning of the new year to honor the Mother of God — who is also our mother (see John 19:27). The redemption of humanity began with Mary, who agreed to be the mother of the Lord. There is no better person for good beginnings.

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This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA's sister news partner, on Jan. 2, 2022, and has been adapted by CNA.