Consuming the Flesh of the Mother of God

Recently, I was accused of putting too much emphasis on the Mother of God and the activity of the Saints.  My response was that my emphasis is important in understanding our relationship with Jesus Christ. St. Macarius said, “human free will is an essential condition, for without it even God himself does nothing”. It is true that our salvation comes from Christ alone, but he would not be here without our consent. This is important for us to realize because our actions do matter. There are wonderful things that God wishes to do with us, but without our participation we end up grieving the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:30).

The Greek theologian Panagiotus Trembelas once said, “From the beginning to end, in the work of man’s conversion and sanctification there run side by side two lines: divine grace and human free will. Continually these two lines converge and touch each other, and so together they contribute to our salvation….Yet at no moment and at no point in the development of this work does the one line obliterate and cancel out the other”. In terms of these two lines mentioned there is a whole history of their convergence in the saints of the Old Testament. Without the Old Testament saints, we would not be where we are today. There would be no Church. God set apart certain people and worked with these people in mediating his divine grace into this world. Through them, he was preparing the world for salvation through Jesus Christ.

Just as we can grow in experiencing divine grace, the Old Testament saints could as well. However, their growth was through many purifications and acts of divine condescension, God coming down to our level and bringing us up to his. These purifications and divine condescensions had a purpose and climax. God was creating for himself a most perfect and pure temple in which the fullness of divine grace could enter our world. In other words, God was perfecting our humanity by working with the O.T. saints, returning human nature to its purpose, a purpose that became obscured due to sin. It was through the conception of Theotokos that the purpose and climax of Old Testament sanctity was achieved.

God at any time could have picked anyone to become the Theotokos. However, as St. Macarius said God can do nothing without us. Our choices matter and the Theotokos would not be with us without the response of the saints of the Old Testament. Her conception was the height of what was possible in terms of human perfection. For this reason, the Church rightly honors her as the Immaculate Conception and the Panagia, "the All Holy". As the Russian Theologian Sergei Bulgakov taught, the life of the Theotokos is a series of gifts of grace given to us by the Holy Spirit, beginning with Her conception. She received naturally through her cooperation with God what we all receive now through our participation in the life of the Church.

St. Symeon the New Theologian said that when we partake on the Flesh our Lord, in the Eucharist, we at the same time partake of the flesh of the Theotokos. God took his flesh from the Theotokos. God became what we are through her. He could not have become what we are without us. The fiat of the Theotokos represents a long history of God working with us in order to bring about our salvation. In terms of our salvation, we can now have everything that God is. This is all thanks to the people that have worked with God, which includes both the saints of the Old and New Testaments. Without them we would not be where we are. This is a truth that we need to make our own. God is not done saving the world. There will come a day when God wipes away every tear (Rev. 21:4). This is a day that God is now calling us to work with him to bring about. It’s a mystery, but God truly is trusting each of us with the salvation of the world.