Fr. Prof. Staniloae, homily at Dormition:
Jesus Christ is the Son of God Who was born as a human, under the natural law, but not according to the natural law. He was born exceeding the blind laws of regular human birth and, because of that, He was able to be without sin and he was able to die, not for His sin, but for our sins. Otherwise, His Cross would have no purpose.
Therefore, logically, by rejecting his birth of a Virgin, they also reject the value of the Cross. By rejecting the Theotokos, they reject the Cross. We see the value of the Cross by the fact that He is not a mere man who is born normally according to the blind laws of this existence, but He is the Son of God who became incarnate of the Virgin Mary. He is fully God, eternal and begotten before all ages. But, in His ineffable humbleness and compassion, He choses to become fully a man, subject to the laws of nature, and born of a woman.
And if she is the body through whom He took His body according to the flesh, His body which He then transfigured and resurrected, how could He allow her body to rot, spoil and become corrupt the way it happens to the bodies of the other humans? If He is resurrected, He wanted to provide proof that we will also be resurrected, but especially and foremost, she will be resurrected. We will be resurrected in the end, when the entire establishment of this world will change, all the laws of this world will change… But He wanted to show that not only He – as the Son of God made human – is resurrected, but that also someone from among the human beings is resurrected, a representative of humankind, and specifically the one from whom he got his blood, his body, his human life…
It is intrinsic to Orthodoxy to not present the Mother of the Lord separate from Christ in icons, as it occurs in the West with the Madonna paintings. She is always linked to Jesus Christ. This is because she is the closest to Him. Who can be closer to her Son than a mother?
He was born of a woman, and thus became the Son of a mother. He loves His human mother, just like we love our own mothers. He listens to her prayers, just like we listen to what our mothers ask of us (John 2, 1-12).
And, conversely, her heart throbs for everything His does. He came down in order to love us, to be crucified for us… It is not possible for her not to love us as well… It is not possible for her not to suffer for our misfortune as He does… It is not possible for her not come rushing to our aid just as He does… But all her power proceeds from Him alone… He alone is the Savior. She is only the one who, through her relationship with Him, receives the power to help us through various adversity and hardships. This is why it is good to pray to her as well, as the Church does and the faithful do, asking her not for salvation, but rather to be delivered from adversity.
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