By Fr. George Dorbarakis
It may be that ecclesiastically the feast of Mother’s Day points to the Reception of the Lord in the Temple, yet the occasion of the second Sunday of May from a secular standpoint should not be overlooked either — it gives one the opportunity once again to speak about one of the holiest persons that exist in the world. Besides, this is a common practice of the Church, by which a secular event receives from her theology a depth that otherwise no one could ever have imagined. Therefore, this particular day brings forward the MOTHER, the person before whom everyone bows down — regardless of origin, gender, education, social standing, or age. “Mother,” cries the little child; “mother,” the young man; and “mother,” the old man; “mother,” you hear in every place — ah, what a sweet name! as the poet says. And truly: thousands of poems, songs, literary works, paintings, and sculptures throughout the world have as their subject this unique person, before whom one stands with awe and boundless respect. Why? Because obviously no one stands closer than the Mother to that which reveals the mystery of life!
But it is precisely here that the theological vision of the Church has something to say. For where life itself is being ministered, that is, in the womb of the woman, where a new existence is conceived in order to develop and come into the world as a new human being, there the presence of the energy of our God exists. How can anyone believe, if he wishes to be even minimally Christian, that life exists independently of Him Who is its source? God is “He Who Is,” Being itself as the Person “I Am,” and therefore the giver of every form of being. Scripture reveals this in a simple yet very clear way: “God is the One Who opens the womb of the woman” (Isaiah 66:9; Genesis 29:31; Jeremiah 1:5), which means that indeed by the will of God there is the union of man and woman, yet without the divine will and energy things would remain barren. (Only in the case of our incarnate God do we have something different: His conception “of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” But there we speak of an absolute exception that constitutes the greatest mystery ever manifested on earth: God appearing in the world as man.) Every child, from this perspective, is God’s “yes” to the continuation of human life; it is His confirmation that He Himself wishes to “repeat” Himself, since every human being constitutes an image of Christ with the potential to become like Him. The Lord Himself characterized the coming of every person into the world as an especially joyful event: “for joy that a man is born into the world” (John 16:21), He said. And rightly so: as an image of Christ, each person is potentially a member of His Kingdom, that is, a member of His very Body, an increase and extension of His own joy. Yet do not all these things also reveal the greatness of the one through whom, as we said, life itself is ministered — the Mother?
But one cannot speak about the Mother in her natural dimension without also speaking about the Great Mother, our Panagia herself — the one considered the supreme model of motherhood. And not only because she became the Mother of God as man, truly Unique throughout all ages, but because she is also the Mother of all people: in actuality of Christians, because they are members of her Son and God, Jesus Christ; potentially also of all the rest, because they too may accept His calling and partake of His mystical Body. This is not a pious assumption, but the exact confession of the Lord’s revealed word upon the Cross. “Behold your son,” He says to His Mother, pointing to John; “behold your mother,” He says to the disciple John, pointing to His Mother! From that moment on, the Panagia truly became the Mother of us all, literally “our all-praised Mother,” as we proclaim in the most solemn way during the service of the Akathist Hymn: “O all-praised Mother, who gave birth to the holiest Word of all the saints!”
And together, of course, with the Panagia as the Mother of the Lord and our own Mother, it is natural that the feast of Mother’s Day also places before us the Church herself. For what else can the Church be considered except the Mother who gives birth to her children unto eternal life? Is this not what the Lord said? “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (John 3:5). And we speak of the spiritual birth of man, when he emerges into his new life as a member of Christ from the “womb” of the Church, the holy baptismal font. And even more: when through the Spirit she gives the possibility for his continual rebirth through the renewal of baptism in the mystery of repentance. The Church is a continual Pool of Siloam that ceaselessly snatches us away from the misery and death of sin and from the wicked devil, in order to set us eternally renewed and living before God. That is why the patristic saying is so true and comforting: “You cannot have God as Father if you do not have the Church as Mother” (St. Cyprian of Carthage). And rightly so: without the regenerating breath of the Spirit of God, Who is the soul of the Church, how can anyone open his eyes and see God as Father and cry out from his heart, “Abba, Father”?
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
