For many Christians around the world, the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God- Theotokos in Greek (God bearer)—may not be well known because of the secular focus on the celebrations surrounding the New Year. In fact, during the many years I lived in my home country, Nigeria, we always celebrated the New Year beginning with a vigil Mass and then the Mass of the day. The focus was always on the new year and not on the Solemnity. It was not until almost three decades ago that I began to rethink the focus of the day’s celebrations and to appreciate more why the Church celebrates this Solemnity at the beginning of the secular new year.
The Solemnity of the Theotokos is not primarily a Marian dogma in itself. It is a Christological dogma that gives validity to the role of Mary in the plan of God for bringing about human salvation. As part of the ongoing Christological controversies that plagued the early church, the debate arose as to who Mary gave birth to; God or the human Jesus? To address this question, Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople (The New Rome), taught that Mary is the Christotokos (the Christ bearer) who gave birth to the human Jesus and not to God. By implication, Nestorius’ view further advanced the question, does Jesus embody a unified personhood that brings together the divine and the human? For Nestorius, there are two separate realities: the divine and the human Christ. Mary only gave birth to one of them, the human Christ.
The Solemnity of the Theotokos is not primarily a Marian dogma; it is a Christological dogma that safeguards the unity of God and humanity in Jesus Christ.”
To address the theological issues at stake and to preserve Catholic orthodoxy as it pertains to the salvific efficacy of the incarnation, the Council of Ephesus met in 431 C.E. Thanks to one of Africa’s most illustrious theologians, Cyril of Alexandria, the insistence on the unity of God and humanity in Jesus was embraced. In Jesus lie two natures, divine and human and both are united in the divine personhood. Thus, that which Mary gave birth to is both fully divine and fully human, and both natures are grounded in the Second Person of the Trinity.
The clarification of the distinct markers of the two natures in Jesus Christ became relevant in order to address the ongoing heresies advocated by Nestorius (Nestorianism) and by Eutyches (Eutychianism). While Nestorius denied that Mary gave birth to God but rather gave birth to the human Jesus, Eutyches taught that Jesus had only one nature, the divine nature, and this nature absorbed his human nature. While this may sound as a good spiritual understanding of who Jesus is, it had great doctrinal implications. Can we really talk of God as a God of solidarity when that which is human disappears when in proximity to the divine?
It will take another twenty years, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 C.E. that the unity of these two natures in Jesus Christ will be clearly defined as grounded not just in the divine hypostasis (foundation) of the Son of the Father, but that these two natures are without division, without separation, without confusion, and without change. In the Hypostatic Union, divinity and humanity are fully grounded in a union of intimacy, love, openness, and distinction. God does not stop being God in the union. Humanity does not disappear before the face of God in the Incarnate Christ. In Jesus’ divine nature are the attributes that constitute divine nature – divine will, divine rationality, and divine personhood. In Jesus’ human nature are the attributes that constitute human nature – human soul/spirit, human will, human rationality, and human affects. However, in Jesus there is no human personhood. This is because should there be two persons in Jesus, then there will be two distinct realities walking the streets of Galilee and this will result in the heresy that Nestorius had taught, and which was rejected. While nature is the principle of commonality, that which is shared with all the members that constitute a specie, personhood is the principle of individuation/difference, that distinguishes members of the same specie. Thus, in Jesus resides the Second Person of the Trinity who makes for the possibility of the union of these two natures, hence we speak of the Hypostatic Union.
Today, many Christians around the world who uphold the teachings of the Council of Ephesus refer to Mary as the Mother of God, but do not always know the historical issues that led to the dogmatic definition of this article of faith. While this may puzzle those interested in the history of the development of doctrines, I am more interested in addressing a question we may all be familiar with: Why does the Church celebrate this Solemnity? A common response would tend to focus our attention on Mary or even on Jesus. Without diminishing the content of such responses, I am particularly interested in offering a response that will be further expanded in my reflection on the Feast of the Epiphany.
Mary stands as a mirror to the world, revealing in an enfleshed way how we are called to become bearers of God to one another.”
To take seriously the theological response of Cyril of Alexandria in addressing the views of Nestorius, one cannot but ask the question, how does Mary serve as a medium of our own revelation? In Jesus, Christians encounter the gift of intimacy that is grounded in the union of two distinct and inseparable natures – divine and human. In this gift of the incarnation, humanity is invited to encounter its true self as an embodied realization of the new Adam. This truth is concretized in the Sacrament of Baptism. In Baptism, the baptized is gifted with a new humanity that she cannot attain of her own accord but only as a gift that is mediated in Christ. But Baptism also offers a pathway for the recipient of the new humanity to stand as a mirror for all in the world to encounter that which they have been promised to become should they willingly accept the gift being offered to them by God through Christ.
Mary, as the Mother of God stands as a mirror to the world that reveals what one ought to be in their fidelity to the will of God that is instantiated through the gift itself. In other words, by declaring the dogma of the Theotokos, the Church is making a statement that Mary reveals in a concrete and in an enfleshed manner how we are called to become the bearers of God to the world. As it were, Mary is the North Star for all who have embraced Christ because the gift which we receive in Christ through baptism is not one that is unknowable. It is historicized in the positive response of Mary to the desire of God for her to be the Mother of God. She is the concretized epiphany of the gift that we are called to receive in Christ.
2025 has been a year, like many before, marked with violence, deaths, joys, realized dreams, and many more. Not all who wished to see 2026 were given that grace of life. But for those who are celebrating this moment in our collective history, the Solemnity of Mary as the Mother of God is a reminder to them to become the epiphany of the gift of the incarnation for the world. In fact, they are to embody this gift in the concrete contexts where their lives play out. I am particularly conscious of the global crisis of houselessness as we celebrate this New Year. How can we address this global crisis? I would argue that offering gestures of hospitality to the houseless ones in our neighborhoods is a concrete way to become a God bearer to each other just as Mary is for all of humanity.
The best New Year’s resolution we can make is to choose—consciously and concretely—to become bearers of God’s life to those we encounter.”
Finally, as the world celebrates the beginning of the New Year, as each of us makes some New Year’s resolutions, let us also make the effort to remember that the best New Year’s resolution we can make, and that will have a more enduring effect in our lives and those of others is to consciously choose to become the bearers of God’s life to those we encounter this year. In doing this, we embody that which Mary has become as well – the enduring Theotokos of life in our world.
Happy New Year!