This glorious feast was established as a commemoration of the Third Ecumenical Council of the Church at Ephesus, in 431. It was set up for our own time in 1931 by Pope Pius XI, fifteen hundred years after the Council of Ephesus. The Catholic Church infallibly declares and defines the Divine Maternity of Our Lady. The Catholic Church tells us that in order to be saved we must believe with our full hearts that the same Person Who is the Son of God the Eternal Father in His Divine nature is also the Child of Mary the Virgin in His human nature. Anyone who refuses or hesitates to call Mary the Mother of God will never be saved. Saint Elizabeth, the cousin of Our Lady, cried out for joy in her doorway when Mary came to visit her after the Annunciation and said, “And whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me!” (Luke 1:43). Saint Paul clearly tells us in the Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter 4, verse 4, “God sent His Son born of a woman.” The dignity of the Mother of God transcends anything that can ever be imagined. It is God giving Himself in fullness to a creature in relationship and in love. Now that God has become man, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity through all eternity must call God the Father His Father and Mary the Virgin His Mother. What God the Father is to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity by nature, Mary the Virgin is to Him by grace. At the command of Mary, God must now obey. The two loveliest prayers a Catholic can say are the “Our Father, Who art in Heaven”, and the “Hail Mary, full of grace”. It was the Council of Ephesus which gave us the end of the Hail Mary – “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.” And through Catholic love and reverence there was added the phrase, “now and at the hour of our death, Amen.”
See also: God’s Own Mother
Modern Russian Icon of Our Lady of the Sign (source)
