The Golden Ass

The Conception of God

Echo of eternity, this warming moment
Like the burning bush fire
For an unexplainably extended time

Penetration of the Silent Word speaking
Felt as soft wind on her skin
As the angel's unexpected light departs

Surprise imagining in Silence coming
Seed planting into my praying
Mary's joyous Annunciation

(poem by me, inspired by the the breath of God outside as I was praying today, on Chritmas Eve, 2020)

This week, in the context of Advent, of the stories of Mary, Joseph, and the Virgin Birth, and of Zechariah's silence, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist, I've been thinking of the connection between their stories and ours.

I've been meditating on how salvation isn't and can't be of ourselves and is and must therefore be found in our waiting on a growth and edification that, yes, we participate in and consent to but whose seed, no, we don't plant. I've been pondering in my heart that and how salvation does and must thus be in our waiting like in a pregnancy for it's climax and fulfillment, and that in it, we bear and carry Christ around our path along the world with us, in seed form, joyously and yet with some trepidation and fear that comes with any pregnancy, hoping, longing, and expecting a birth that will radically change our world to such a disorientingly just extent as to change who we are.

In other words, reflecting on my own death and life, I've been, like Mary, "pondering in my heart" what it means to say "yes" to the Holy Spirit who wasn't only present and at work in Creation, in the desert, in the Judges, in Solomon's Temple, or 2,000 years ago in the form of a messenger sent to His Mother but, in a grace we are now given to see, hear, know, and touch, we are called and invited ourselves, always and this very moment, to practice responding and submitting to with a Creative "Yes."

Then, some guy in some group I'm in gave voice this week to those things I've been, like Mary, "pondering in my heart", when he said the following:

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A spiritual reading of the doctrine is that the virgin birth is an analogy for Theosis [if interested, click here for more information on "theosis"].

"When I see the image of the Theotokos in the eastern apse of the church, either with the Child in her womb, which is what the medallion shape signifies, or holding the Child, I see an image of every Christian soul in whom Christ has been born, in whom Christ has taken His place. As far as I know the first ecclesiastical author to have said this is St. Gregory of Nyssa in On Virginity where he says what took place in the Virgin physically or materially must or will take place in every Christian soul spiritually. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the actualization of Christ in the womb of the Virgin and the actualization of Christ in the soul of the believer."

- Fr. Maximos Constas

Met Kallistos Ware says the following, when discussing Mariology:

"Orthodox honour Mary, not only because she is Theotokos, but because she is Panagia, All-Holy. Among all God's creatures, she is the supreme example of synergy or co-operation between the purpose of the deity and human freedom. God, who always respects our liberty of choice, did not wish to become incarnate without the willing consent of His Mother. He waited for her voluntary response: 'Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be as you have said' (Luke 1:38). Mary could have refused, she was not merely passive, but an active participant in the mystery."

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Pictured here: Icon of the Theotokos (meaning "birthgiver-of-God") from St John the Baptist Orthodox Church, Warren OH (pic stolen from here).