MATERNITÀ DIVINA DI MARIA S.ma. - It is the principal privilege of Mary, and the root of all the others. The nature and the foundations of the d. m. were illuminated by Pius XI in the encyclical Lux veritatis, for the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus.
Human motherhood, in general, implies a permanent relation of the mother with the child and vice versa, founded on generation. It matters therefore that a woman (generating principle) communicate to the child (term generated) a nature identical to her own (term according to which the subject is generated) by means of a true and proper generation (conception, gestation and childbirth). There is accordingly a true relation, whose constitutive elements are: the generating principle, the term generated (the subject or person generated according to a determinate nature) and the foundation, that is, the generation. Applying these notions to the d. m. of M., one may say that it consists in a permanent relation of Mary (generating principle) with Christ (term or person generated, according to the human nature), founded on the generation. Since Mary really generated the divine person of the Word according to the human nature, she enjoys a true and proper d. m. All this is well understood if one keeps in mind that in Christ there is a single person (the divine one of the Word) in which two natures subsist, the divine and the human. Consequently, one and the same person (the divine one of the Word), generated from eternity by the Father according to the divine nature, was generated in time by Mary according to the human nature. The denial of the uniqueness of the person in Christ drove Nestorius (v.) to admit that Mary was only Χριστοτόκος (Mother of Christ) and not Θεοτόκος (Mother of God). He admitted in fact in Christ not only two natures but also two persons, the divine and the human, in a perfect moral union of wills. This heresy was solemnly condemned in the Council of Ephesus (431) with singular exultation of all the faithful (cf. Denz-U, 148).
This dogma is explicitly contained in Revelation. In Sacred Scripture Mary is presented as the mother of Jesus, conceived by her and brought forth (Is. 7, 14; Mt. 2, 11; Lk. 1, 31; 2, 7; Jn. 2, 1, 3, 5, 12; 19, 25-26; Gal. 4, 4). Jesus, moreover, is presented as God. Mary therefore, being the mother of Jesus, true God, is in a true and proper sense the mother of God. Thus, moreover, St. Elizabeth greeted her when, inspired by God, she exclaimed: "And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Lk. 1, 43). The term "Lord" is a synonym of "God," since in the same chapter it is used 14 times and always in the sense of "God," and Elizabeth herself adds: "the things which have been told thee from the Lord shall be accomplished in thee," that is, from "God" (Lk. 1, 45).
Christian tradition, from the apostolic age onward, has always attested in an explicit manner the d. m. of M.: St. Ignatius of Antioch (Ephes., 7), St. Irenaeus (Adv. haer., III, 16, 22; PG 7, 921, 955), Tertullian (De carne Christi, 17; PL 2, 781-82), St. Hippolytus (Contr. haeres. Noeti, 17; PG 10, 825-28). As regards the technical term Θεοτόκος, it was already so universal as to allow St. Cyril of Alexandria to appeal, against Nestorius, to the common usage of the holy Fathers who had preceded him (Liber ad Reginas, De recta in D. N. I. C. fide; PG 76, 1218).
The dignity that comes to Mary from the d. m. is altogether singular and, in a certain sense, that is, morally, is infinite, since the Son, as St. Albert the Great asserted, renders the goodness of the Mother infinite (Mariale, q. 197). It brings the Virgin into a most intimate relation with the individual persons of the Most Holy Trinity. By itself, the d. m. incomparably surpasses the whole order of nature, of grace and of glory, since it raises the Virgin to the supreme among all created orders, to the order of the Hypostatic Union, to which she belongs as instrumental cause of the Incarnation of the Word. For this reason the holy Fathers, the Doctors of the Church and ecclesiastical writers have used the most beautiful titles to extol the transcendent dignity of the Mother of God.
FESTA LITURGICA
A special feast in honor of the divine motherhood of Mary was instituted only in the 18th century. At the request of the Portuguese clergy and of King Joseph Emmanuel, Benedict XIV, by decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (Jan. 22, 1751), granted it to Portugal, to be celebrated with double major rite, on the first Sunday of May, and he himself prepared the Mass and the Office for it (cf. Benedict XIV, Opera, VI [Prato 1842], pp. 212). In the course of time it was extended also to the Venetian Dominion (1752), to the Kingdom of Naples (1778), to the diocese of Perugia (1800), to Tuscany (1807), to England (1843), etc. Then, in commemoration of the 15th centenary of the Council of Ephesus, Pius XI (encyclical Lux veritatis, Dec. 25, 1931; AAS, 23 [1931], pp. 516-17) extended it to the universal Church with double rite of the 2nd class and with proper Mass and Office (cf. F. G. Holweck, Fasti Mariani, Freiburg im Breisgau 1892, pp. 224-25). - See plate XXVII.
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Gabriele Roschini