During the octave of Christmas the Church celebrates the
Solemnity of the Mother of God, the motherhood of the
Blessed Virgin Mary.
The first Marian dogma is that she is Mother of God. Devotion to the Mother of God is superior to devotion to the saints and subordinant to worship and adoration of God.
The Church believes that Mother of God is the most important title we can give the Blessed Virgin Mary because she was created by God for this task. When did she receive this task? When she said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.”[1]
In response to Nestorius, who denied that Mary was the Mother of God and claimed that she was only the mother of the man Christ, the Council of Ephesus solemnly proclaimed in the year 431 that Mary is the holy Mother of God.
With Mary, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit to the Father
Our father and founder Father Joseph Kentenich stated the teaching consistently iterated by popes and saints, that love for Mary is the most fruitful, sure, and easy way to Christ and through him in the Holy Spirit to the Father.
Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit not only to his Apostles but also to us.[2] The Holy Spirit gives the grace to understand that the Mother of God truly is my mother, she is the Mother of Christians. St. Augustine said that with her love she contributed to the birth of the faithful in the Church, because we are members of the Head of whom she is the mother in the flesh. [3]
Love for the Blessed Virgin Mary is inscribed in our hearts
Earthly motherhood is a mystery—there exists a relationship of blood and of life between mother and child. Being a mother means taking care of one’s children with all one’s strength until the end of one’s life.
Thus the Mother of God is our mother, as the Popes Pius X and Leo XIII already said. The eternal God and Father decreed that no grace is granted to us without her cooperation. Therefore, since the time of our Baptism, love for the Blessed Virgin Mary is written indelibly into our hearts.
In our Schoenstatt Shrines, the Mother of God is venerated under the title Three Times Admirable Mother, Queen, and Victress of Schoenstatt. Her title is a confession of her maternal love. She is the admirable Mother of the Redeemer and she is the admirable Mother of the Redeemed.
Another expressive sign in our Schoenstatt Shrine is found in the light frame around the image of the Mother of God: Servus Mariae nunquam peribit, a servant of Mary will never perish. Those who consecrate themselves to her can be certain they will be protected as her child and will have a blessed death.
Another well-known expression is: Mater habebit curam – The Mother of God will take care of everything–because her Son listens to her.
Born anew in Christ
The Blessed Virgn Mary was the first person to be formed in the image of Christ and to educate and form Christ in people. Father Kentenich’s situated his original Marian devotion, to love her and to consecrate onself to her, within her postiton in the work of salvation: She forms the image in us of her Son Jesus, the new person. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!”[1]
The greeting that we often use in our prayers confesses our faith in the unity of Christ and Mary: