COULD OUR LADY BE A TRINITY-MADE-WOMAN?
Our Lady is a trinity-made-woman, because her part in God’s plan of human salvation is a noble one needing sublime preparation and execution. She is not just a mere human being like us. She was created by the Trinity to be a trinity-made-woman. In effect, her Immaculate Conception is a prodigy, which can be understood if and only if one can believe that one of the attributes of God is to be all-powerful (omnipotent). If God is omnipotent, what can prevent Him from willing the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ? We can substantiate this more even going through the scriptures and faith- filled common sense logic.
In the gospel of Luke, we read that the Archangel Gabriel was sent by God [the Father] to her for the annunciation [Luke 1:26 -28]. Then, God the Holy Spirit was to overshadow her for the virginal conception of Jesus [Luke 1:35], and she was to give birth to God the Son [Luke 1:31-32}. If she is just an ordinary human being like me and you, how can all these be possible ? Hence, due to the merits of Jesus Christ the eternal saviour of the world and mankind, it is most necessary and most appropriate that she be conceived immaculate.
She was created for this job as we believe that God has a will for everybody. No one could have supplied for her if God did not create in her a trinity- woman who found favour with God [Luke 1:30]. If Jesus could argue that he and his father are one [John 14:8-11], what is the implication, if not that Mary gave birth to God- theotokos; already defined at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. Who then is the Christian God if not the Trinity? How can Mary be conceived like any ordinary human being and be the Mother of God? She was therefore created Immaculate, conceived Immaculate, graced Immaculate, lived Immaculate and rewarded Immaculately. This is a revelation and a mystery, understood by mere pious and docile children of God [Luke 10:21].
So, the critics and cynics cum agnostics of our time need to reflect on the scripture and apply simple faith-filled common sense logic, to understand this mystery and revelation, than mere illogical, inconsequential protests and reasoning in the name of rationalisation, modernism, Protestantism or computer age pattern of thinking. Reason compliments faith and not against faith. Faith continues where reason stops. The scholastics were wise enough in holding that philosophy is the handmaid of theology- philosophia ancillae theologiae est. Hence, man is not only a being with reason, but also man is a social, ecological, cultural, political, psychological, physical, moral and very importantly a religious being. This dogma has much meaning to the people of Africa and especially to the Nigerian Church as I suppose to many in America, Europe, Asia and Oceania.
Rev. Fr. Hilary Ugochukwu Ekwenibe
From Nigeria, but resides at Minnesota - U.S.A.
Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis