And how can we remember her without wonder and adoration? This is why we have such a profound reverence for the Mother of God. For in this very word Theotokos is contained the whole mystery of the Incarnation and the salvation of the human race.
The Mother of God is hailed also as Ever-Virgin (Aeiparthenos). The Church Fathers and hymns refer repeatedly to this paradox: virginity and motherhood are in nature mutually exclusive, but in the Mother of God the two opposites meet and are joined together. Christ was born not of man but of the Holy Spirit, and Orthodox Tradition, like Catholicism, holds that the Mother of God remained a virgin after the Birth of Christ as well as before. Some Christians contest this, quoting as their argument a passage in the Gospel of Matthew (13:54–56): “When [Jesus] had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’” (NKJV).
Orthodoxy understands these brothers and sisters as “siblings” from a former wife of Joseph, and not from Mary. Furthermore, “The terminology of Israel … made no distinction between brothers and cousins but referred to all as ‘brothers.’”11 Mary had become the mother of all humankind through giving birth to God. She belonged completely and utterly to Him:
Becoming the vessel for the Lord of Glory Himself, and carrying in the flesh Him whom heaven and earth cannot contain, surely would have been grounds to consider her life, including her body, as fully consecrated to God and sexual relations as unthinkable. Even in the comparatively minor (and strikingly parallel) incident of the Lord’s entry through the East gate of the Temple in Ezekiel 43–44, prompts the call: “This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut” (44:2).12
And Without Change Became Man
The Word of God, in becoming man, did not cease to be God. In Christ God and man, divinity and humanity, are joined. Christ is like the bridge between God and man, between heaven and earth. For only if He is God can we come to the Father through Him, but only if He is human can we humans meet with God through Him.
You Were Crucified, Christ God, by Death Trampling on Death
Humanity, through its own sin, through disobedience to God’s will, had become mortal, subject to death. So Christ, Who is immortal, became a mortal and died, that He may destroy death, because He is greater than death. He is the source of life. He is life itself. Thus by His own death, which could only be achieved by becoming a mortal man, He destroyed death, and He granted us immortality once more; as God death has no power over Him. He rose from the dead and ascended to the Father in heaven, that we too, after our death, may ascend there to be with Him. As it is written in the Gospel of St. John: “In my Father’s house are many rooms.… I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (14:2–3, VP). One of the greatest teachers and bishops of the Church, St. Athanasius the Great, summed this all up very well by saying: “God became man that man might become God.”13
All this is the source of our joy and hope, the heart of our faith. Through Christ, we are given true, everlasting life. Therefore at the Divine Liturgy, we give thanks, we praise and worship the author of our salvation. We offer our lives to Him, that we may have true life, that Christ may always be with us and within us. That is the ultimate purpose of the Eucharist. At the Liturgy, Christ is incarnated again, no longer in the form of a man, but now in the form of bread and wine, that in Holy Communion we may be able to receive Him as His Body and Blood and thus be perfectly and fully one with Him.
Of course, at the beginning of the Liturgy we are far from reaching the point of Holy Communion. But the Liturgy is our preparation for Communion.
We must not separate the Sacrament of the Eucharist from the Liturgy. For there can be no Holy Communion without the Liturgy. Of course, Communion is taken to those who are sick, who are physically unable to come to church to partake in the Divine Liturgy. But otherwise we must participate in the Liturgy before we can receive Communion.
But before we even begin to speak of Holy Communion at the Divine Liturgy, we must first hear the word of God, and this hearing of God’s word is also something that we must prepare for, and that preparation begins with what is called the “Little Entrance,” or the “Entrance of the Gospel,” when the clergy bring the Gospel from the altar and carry it in procession to the center of the church.
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