This is the second article in a series on the Litany of Loreto. Every month, I will explain this popular prayer line by line, providing you with spiritual and theological insights.
In the previous article on the Litany of Loreto, we discussed the opening invocation of the Holy Trinity, as well as the first title of Our Lady that the Litany mentions: "Holy Mary."
This month, we continue with the next line:
Holy Mother of God, pray for us.
So, by having said her name rather simply, "Holy Mary," we grab her attention, and she turns to us. Then, we go right into her greatest title, greatest role, greatest privilege â that she is the Mother of God. Many theologians believe that her being "Mother of God" stands as the main principle of all Mariology.
This truth finds its basis, quite clearly, in Scripture, when Elizabeth says, "But who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Lk 1:43).
So clearly, this woman was more than merely a holy person. She became the very Mother of God â the one who brought God's Son into the world in the Incarnation. She's the God-bearer, and that alone shows her privileged place in our salvation history.
Holy Virgin of virgins, pray for us.
In this litany, in a certain sense, we're calling upon the Church's definition of doctrine regarding Our Lady chronologically. She was officially declared "Mother of God" in the fourth century. Although the Church had always called her that, they saw the need to state this fact definitively.
Then in the seventh century, the Church declared her a "perpetual virgin." So not only is she the "Mother of God," but she is a virginal mother, "the Virgin of virgins." In other words, she is the most pure woman of all time, set aside for God. That's what remaining a virgin, in the Christian sense, is for â being set aside for the Lord and His purposes alone. No one was more set aside for the Lord than Mary.
Mother of Christ, pray for us.
Obviously, Mary is not the mother of the Holy Trinity. She's the mother of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who becomes man and takes on human nature.
Here, we're acknowledging her as the Mother of God, Mother of the Savior, the Messiah. She's not only the one who surrendered and said "yes" to God, but then through her â through her own flesh â she gave birth to the Savior of the world.
"Mother of Christ" has a lot of rich, biblical overtones, bringing to mind the fact that the Israelite people waited for the Messiah. And it's because of Mary's cooperation with God that the Messiah entered the world, and for that, we remain grateful.
View the previous article in this series.
