As a result of me being raised in a very devout Presbyterian household as a child, I have been reading and studying the scriptures since approximately the time I have been able to read. I studied the gospels and epistles devoutly in my youth, often pausing to reflect on the meaning of certain passages as I came to them. However, despite this consistent studying and reflection, I failed to emphasize certain passages in my own mind deeply enough to think about their theological and practical implications in the life of the church. One such of these passages comes from the Gospel of St. Luke, who notes that the Virgin Mary prophesied that all generations afterwards would call her blessed. Speaking in the passage, the Virgin Mary says the following:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
⁴⁸ for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
⁴⁹ for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
⁵⁰ And his mercy is on those who fear him
from generation to generation.
⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm,
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts,
⁵² he has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree;
⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away.
⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
⁵⁵ as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.” (Luke 1:46-55).

Although I had certainly read this passage in my study of the gospels, I never thought deeper about the passage than along the lines of, “So we should probably remember the Virgin Mary every once in a while because she gave birth to Jesus, but she’s really not that important. It is Christ Who saves us, and that’s the only important thing.” Being surrounded by Protestant friends and family, this interpretation of the Virgin Mary’s words was subject to confirmation bias until I had a conversation about the Virgin Mary with a good friend of mine who is Roman Catholic. I simply asked him out of my own curiosity why Catholics pray to the Virgin Mary. He explained to me that Catholics do not pray to her as one who has power in and of herself, but they pray to her to entreat God for them, because as God’s human mother on the Earth who is now more fully in God’s presence (and her Son’s presence, who is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh) she can pray and intercede for us more than we are able to pray for ourselves. The entreaties of the mother have great effect on her Son.

I refused to acknowledge his explanation. I grumbled something about that being ridiculous and idolatry, and that God alone is the only One Christians can pray to. I had not the ears to hear, nor the eyes to see.

This question of the Virgin Mary in the life of the church remained unexamined in my mind until I started going to Divine Liturgies at the nearest Orthodox Church to my house with my father at the age of thirteen. It was then I was forced to examine the question of the Virgin Mary more deeply and analytically for the first time in my life. I would hear refrains between the hymns that said, “Most Holy Theotokos save us!” (Theotokos is a Greek word meaning, "The Mother of God") and here songs such as:

Greater in honor than the Cherubim, and in glory greater beyond compare than the Seraphim, you without corruption gave birth to God the Word and are truly Theotokos. You do we magnify.

It was at this point in my life that I was finally compelled to deal with my own lack of honor of the Virgin Mary. She had herself said that all generations would call her blessed. Furthermore, the Orthodox Church, which follows in the tradition of Christ and the Apostles and uses ancient Christian liturgies that are over a millennium old, consistently honors the Theotokos with hymns and songs throughout the services. Why was I refusing to participate in the theology and traditions of the Apostles and denying the words of the gospels with my actions? Why did I not honor her who had held the uncreated and unseen God in her own womb, thus fulfilling God’s plan of salvation by allowing Him to become man in the person of Jesus Christ? Why did I refuse to hymn and extol her who had been prepared from birth and raised in the temple to be the one who physically bore the Christ child?

After much prayer and discussion with multiple Orthodox priests and Orthodox laymen, I realized that the answer to the above questions simply had to do with my own selfishness and inability to admit that I had been wrong. I came to the conclusion that the historic witness of the Church was worth more than whatever I, a twenty-first century American, had anachronistically interpreted from having a translated Bible without the context of its original language, purpose, place, and intent. I was forced to stop playing God and admit my faults.

I gradually began to sing the hymns honoring the Virgin Mary. I prayed the prayers that entreated her to pray to God for me (for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; the prayer of the righteous avails much) to heal my own sins and passions. And somehow, without logical reason or explanation, I got over my fear of honoring the Virgin Mary. I came to realize that her love for mankind and intercession for the universe had great effects on both my own journey to become like Christ and that of others around me. I realized that just as Christ had told St. John, his beloved disciple, that the Virgin Mary is St. John’s mother and that St. John is her son, that the Virgin Mary is also my mother and that I am her son. If God is my father, then Mary must also be my mother.

The love I have for the Theotokos has gradually grown over the past two years of my spiritual life as an Orthodox Christian. This past summer, while visiting the Monastery of Mega Spilion in Greece, I got to see and venerate the first icon of the Virgin Mary ever written, which was made by St. Luke the Evangelist as she posed in front of him. Commenting on that experience, I previously wrote:

I cannot explain what happened, but I started crying. I do not know why I cried, but I believe that I cried because I knew that this icon has a unique connection to the Mother of God both physically and spiritually, who stood before St. Luke to allow him to make this image. I cried because I knew I was not worthy to look at such an image. I cried because I knew I needed to ask Christ’s mother to intercede for me to change those parts of me which are dark and laden with sin. I cried because I felt the love in the place of hate. I cried because I felt life in the place of death. I cried because I knew, in some small way, this was God’s way of showing His divine love for me and all of the humanity. It was the type of crying that profoundly changes a person after they are done.

Indeed, just as our love for the Holy Trinity grows with time and devotion to God, our love for the Theotokos and all the saints who intercede for us day and night also grows, and we begin to realize that we are not saved alone. I need the prayers of the saints. I need the prayers of my friends. And my friends need my prayers and those of the saints as well. I cannot become like God by myself. I need the help of others, just as others need my help (see Hebrews 11:29-40 and Hebrews 12:1-2).

So let us thus honor and magnify the Theotokos, the mother of the Light who gave birth to God incarnate in human flesh. Through the prayers of our Most Pure Mother, our holy and god-bearing fathers, and of all the saints, Lord Jesus Christ our God have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

I would like to extend a special thanks to both my dad and Athena, who both recommended that I write on this subject.