THE MOTHER OF GOD – THE THEOTOKOS

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God, and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

THE MOTHER OF GOD – THE THEOTOKOS
By Anthony Bloom

THERE ARE two types of icons of the Mother of God. The usual type is that which you find in East and West – the Virgin holding the child. This is an image of several things and not only the Mother of God as a person. It is an image of the INCARNATION, an assertion of the Incarnation and its reality. It’s an assertion of the True and real motherhood of the Virgin. And, if you look attentively at the icon, you will see that the Mother of God HOLDING THE Child NEVER LOOKS AT THE Child. She always looks neither at you nor into the distance but her open eyes LOOK DEEP INSIDE HER. She is in CONTEMPLATION. She is NOT looking at things. And her tenderness is expressed by the shyness of her hands. She holds the Child without hugging him. She holds the Child AS ONE WOULD HOLD SOMETHING SACRED THAT ONE IS BRINGING AS AN OFFERING, AND ALL THE TENDERNESS, ALL THE HUMAN LOVE, IS EXPRESSED BY THE Child, NOT the Mother. She remains the Mother of God and she treats the child, not as a baby Jesus, BUT AS THE INCARNATE Son of God Who has become the son of the Virgin and He, being True Man and True God, expresses to her all the love and tenderness of man and God both to His mother and to His creature. This is one image.

Another image, which you find very seldom, is the image of the Mother of God alone, without the obvious presence of Christ. I will describe just one of them. It is a Russian icon of the 17th century. You see a Russian peasant girl who has lost her veil, whose hair, parted in the middle, just falls down on a rather square face. Her eyes are big and she is looking into infinity or into the depths. Certainly not a view of anything which is in front of her. If you look more you see two hands. Two hands that couldn’t be where they are simply because anatomy wouldn’t allow it. They are not there to be part of a realistic picture, they are there to express what neither the face nor the hands nor the eyes could express without ceasing to express something more important. They ARE HANDS OF ANGUISH. And then, in the corner of the icon, almost invisible, pale yellow on pale yellow background, a little mount and an empty cross. This IS THE MOTHER CONTEMPLATING THE CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF HER ONLY BEGOTTEN SON.

When we turn to the Mother of God in prayer, we should realise more often than we do that any prayer we offer to the Mother of God means this: ‘Mother, I have killed thy son. If you forgive me, I can be forgiven. If you withhold forgiveness, NOTHING can save me from damnation.’ And it is amazing that the Mother of God, in all which is revealed in the Gospel, has made us understand, and made us bold to come to her with this very prayer, because THERE IS NOTHING ELSE WE CAN SAY. To us she is the Mother of God. She is THE ONE WHO BROUGHT GOD Himself into our earthly situation. In that sense we insist on this term ‘Mother of God.’ Through her God became Man. He was born into the human situation through her. And she IS NOT to us simply an instrument of hte Incarnation. She IS THE ONE WHOSE PERSONAL SURRENDER TO GOD, HER LOVE OF GOD, HER READINESS TO BE WHATEVER GOD WILLS, HER HUMILITY IN THE SENSE IN WHICH I HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT IN TO YOU ALREADY, IS SUCH THAT GOD COULD BE BORN OF HER. There is, in one of our great Saints and theologians of the 14th Century, a passage on the Mother of God in which he says, ‘The Incarnation WOULD HAVE BEEN AS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT THE "Here am I, the handmaid of God" of the Virgin, just as it would have been impossible WITHOUT THE WILL OF THE Father.’ Here there IS A TOTAL CO-OPERATION BETWEEN HER AND GOD. Speaking of the Incarnation and the attitude of the Blessed Virgin, I think an English writer has put it in a remarkable way – Charles Williams in his novel All Hallows Eve. He says of the Incarnation that what makes its uniqueness is that ‘one day a virgin of Israel was capable of pronouncing the sacred name WITH ALL HER HEART, ALL HER MIND, ALL HER BEING, ALL HER BODY, IN SUCH A WAY THAT IN HER WORD BECAME FLESH.’ I think this is a very good theological statement that signifies the place which she has in the Incarnation.

We LOVE HER, WE FEEL PERHAPS IN HER IN A PECULIAR WAY WE SEE THE Word/Logos of God spoken by Saint Paul who says "My power is made manifest in weakness." We can see this frail virgin of Israel, this frail girl, DEFEATING SIN IN HER, DEFEATING HELL, DEFEATING EVERYTHING BY THE POWER OF GOD WHICH IS IN HER. And this is why at moments like persecutions, when indeed the power of God is made manifest in nothing but weakness, the Blessed Virgin stands out so miraculously, so powerfully in our eyes. If she could defeat earth and hell then we have in her a tower of strength and one WHO CAN INTERCEDE AND SAVE, AND WE MARK THE FACT THAT IN HER THERE IS NO DISCREPANCY WITH THE WILL OF GOD, THAT SHE IS IN PERFECT HARMONY WITH Him, by using a formula of prayer which we use only for God and for her, ‘SAVE US.’ (Source: Beginning to Pray)

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"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George