Christ Church

“Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb”

Elizabeth’s words of greeting to Mary eloquently express a significant doctrinal sensibility which belongs to orthodox Christianity. We cannot think of Jesus apart from Mary, nor Mary apart from Jesus. Mary appears in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles at a number of key doctrinal moments: Christ’s nativity, his crucifixion and even at Pentecost. In the liturgical life of the Church, the major feasts of Christ are complemented by a series of Marian festivals, a kind of parallelism. Her Annunciation is his conception which anticipates his nativity complemented by the commemoration of her nativity (September 8th). Mary and Jesus meet in the double-feast of Candlemas, at once the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and the Purification of Mary (February 2nd). His Resurrection has its counterpart in her Assumption, the Falling Asleep or Dormition of Mary (August 15th). Similarly, his conception at her annunciation is complemented by her conception which we commemorate this night (December 8th) whether with or without the adjective “immaculate”. It means pure or spotless which is part of the larger story of doctrinal reflection. Christ is like us in all respects except sin. Mary’s ‘immaculate’ conception is related to that idea which has to do with the nature of redemption.

As John Donne puts it in an extravagant sonnet, Annunciation, God “yields himself to lie/ In prison, in thy womb; and though he there /Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet he ‘will were/Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try”. The underlying theological insight is that sin, both original and actual, is a negation of our humanity in its truth and purity. Christ assumes his humanity from Mary and as such, in this view, is pure. Christ is the eternal son of God, “that pure one,” as Irenaeus puts it, “opening purely that pure womb which regenerates men unto God and which he himself made pure.” The emphasis, once again, is on the necessary connection between Christ and Mary. Mary’s purity remains a major theme for Anglican divinity and appears in the proper preface for Christmas and the Annunciation. Christ “was made very man of the substance of the Virgin Mary his mother; and that without spot of sin, to make us clean from all sin” (BCP, p. 79).

We meet to honour Mary, Virgin and Mother. She is, as one 17th century writer put it, “The Femall Glory” (Anthony Stafford). For it is through her that we are blessed by the fruit of her womb who in turn is blessed because Christ’s Incarnation is through her. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb”. But only as she says, “according to thy word”.

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