“She came into life for Him, to serve in the salvation of the world so that the ancient will of God for the Incarnation may be fulfilled through her.”1
The Virgin’s mediation, then, is central to the eternal mystery of the Incarnation. She was always the Mediatress.
“The communion of God the Begetter of All Things with the creature He formed, and His sharing in its nature”2 came about by the mediation of the Virgin.
As the “first fruit of the communion,”3 she is both the Mediatress and the living promise of that communion’s coming for all, “a living pledge of the reconciliations wrought by God.'”
Her mediation and intercession are part of God’s eternal will and plan for mankind and Himself.
Her office as Mediatress, therefore, is incomparably broader and deeper than the common, limited perception of the Theotokos as an occasional advocate or intercessor 5 in special circumstances.
The Divine Liturgy says that her mediation (μεσιτεία) and intercession (πρεσβεία) before God on mankind’s behalf are unceasing and unfaltering.
Indeed this is so, but, as the fathers tell us, it is also bi-directional, mediating every good gift from God to mankind.
In the latter sense, she is also God’s Mediatress who “receives the fullness of the gifts of God, transporting them to all, to angels and to men.”6
She mediated the mystery of the Incarnation, both in its ontological purpose in the eternal will of God and in the fallen world.
She is the Mediatress of the rule of God in heaven and earth, because heaven and earth and all things contained by them have the Incarnation as their cause and, because of this, the Theotokos as their co-cause through her cooperation with the will of God.
~Adapted from George S. Gabriel, Mary: The Untrodden Portal of God
1. John of Damascus, Homily on the Birth of the Theotokos, ch. 9.
2. Andrew of Crete, Third Homily on the Dormition, PG 97, 1092C, D.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. With regard to the Theotokos, the Divine Liturgy and the Fathers use both words, “mediation” and “intercession,” often interchangeably to mean the interposing of oneself and making requests on behalf of another, and as well the bringing about of a result, the conveying of an object, the communicating of knowledge or power. When the Fathers call the Theotokos either “Mediatress” or “Intercessor,” they can intend all or any combination of these meanings.
6. Andrew of Crete, Theotokarion.
