How do you describe your God? Can you really describe Him in mere words? If He's small enough for you to describe Him, then how big is He, really? You may be able to tell me his attributes. You may be able to describe an event in your life in which the majesty of the Almighty God became truth for you. Can you actually put into words the description of your God?
How do you know your God? Through His attributes? Through His grace? Through His salvific sacrifice? Through His love? Through His mother?
In times past, the mother of the king was "the queen mother" of the realm. Bathsheba was the queen mother when Solomon reigned. And the mother of Jesus was and is Jesus' queen mother. "Was" while He lived on earth. "Is" as He reigns from heaven. Another comparisons for contemplation: Mary, the mother of Jesus as the "second Eve."
Justin Martyr, who died around 165, repeated an older tradition when he stated:
"[The Son of God] became man through a Virgin, so that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same way it had begun. For Eve, who was virgin and undefiled, gave birth to disobedience and death after listening to the serpent's words. But the Virgin Mary conceived faith and joy; for when the angel Gabriel brought her the glad tidings that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and that the power of the Most High would overshadow her, so that the Holy One born of her would be the Son of God, she answered, ‘Let it be done to me according to thy word' (Lk. 1:38). Thus was born of her the [Child] about whom so many Scriptures speak, as we have shown. Through Him, God crushed the serpent, along with those angels and men who had become like the serpent." (Dialogue with Trypho 100, quoted in Mary and the Fathers of the Church, by Luigi Gambero, Ignatius Press, 1999 pg. 47.)
Church Father Cyril of Jerusalem in the early fifth century compared the ArchAngel Gabriel to the ArchEnemy Satan. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons in the early third century preached that Mary is the "cause of salvation" just as Eve was the "cause of death." Both women were virgins when Eve encountered Satan and Mary encountered Gabriel. Eve was disobedient while Mary was obedient. The role of Eve was dependent on Adam as the role of Mary is dependent on Jesus.
God made salvation dependent on the action of a man. The original sin was Adam's sin, not Eve's. Had Adam not succumbed to Eve's temptation, he would have saved Eve and the entire human race from the punishment of God. 1 Corinthians 15:21a: "For by a man came death." It doesn't say "by a woman" but "by a man." The Fall of Man was the direct result of the sin of Adam. But, God made salvation dependent on the action of a Man! "For by a man came death; and by a man the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). The Salvation of All was the direct result of the obedience of Jesus.
Just as Eve had a causal role in the Fall of Adam, so also, Mary the Mother of Jesus has a causal role in the redemptive act of Jesus. As the one, so the other. As Eve was the undoing, so Mary was the restoration. The parallels are clear in Scripture, not to mention Tradition.
How did I get from asking you to describe God to an explanation of the attributes of Mary, Theotokos? I would suggest it's because one gets to know Someone by knowing His mother. And when one knows Jesus through His mother, one can better describe God.
Your Christmas Eve input? Pace e Bene. Auntie Coosa
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