One mediation of the Mediator and the Mediatress
“She did not mediate only on behalf of certain chosen races, but between God and the entire human race. Standing between both, she made God the Son of Man and men the sons of God. “7
Her mediation is more than a parallel to her Son’s; it is the same mediation because she is the mother of His humanity. And Christ’s mediation belongs to the humanity of the Son of Man and High Priest.
He is the Mediator because her mediation came first. “Through her mediation, He saved and vivified the human race.”8
The meaning of the “one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a ransom for all,”9 therefore, includes Jesus’ mother.
For it was through her that He became the Mediator of the eternal communion of God and creation. Her mediation became His mediation, and He became our “high priest in the heavens.”10
“For verily He did not take on Him the nature of angels, but rather, He took on the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself suffered being tempted, He is able to aid them that are tempted.”11
This mediation works unceasingly through the Theotokos. She was divinized by grace, and in the image of Christ’s human energy, her human energy also became one (but unconfused) with His divine will.
For, from childhood “she shunned human pursuits and surrendered to God the mind’s reigning faculty and placed it in obedience to Him in all things.”12
In a relative sense, angels and saints also enjoy oneness with God, but regarding the Theotokos, it is incomparably and infinitely greater: “The difference between His friends and His mother, however, is infinite.”13
“She alone among all others was worthy and received all gifts of the Spirit collectively.”14 She is the “Queen Mother,”15 the “Queen at the right hand of God”16 in Heaven, interceding “with motherly boldness.”17
~Adapted from George S. Gabriel, Mary: The Untrodden Portal of God
7. Gregory Palamas. Homily 53: On the Entry of the Theotokos, ch. 6.
8. Modestus of Jerusalem, Encomium on the Dormition, PC, 8&-2, 3288.
9. 1Tim. 2:5
10. Heb. 4:14
11. Heb. 2:16·18
12. Gregory Palαmas, Op. cit., ch. 18.
13. John of Damascus, Secοnd Encomium on the Dormition, ch.10.
14. Ibid., ch. 13.
15. First Ode, Canon of the Akathist Hymn.
16. Ps. 44:10
17. From the Compline prayer to the Theotokos. The Greek word (παρρησία) translated here as “boldness” is also “candidness” or, more precisely, “freedom to speak.”
