www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Holy Spirit as Mary's spouse?

Dear Marshall,

You wrote
PS: Alex, how the heck do you know what all these saints said and taught. You must read like a maniac! I'm glad the Spirit cultivates members of Christ body like yourself.

I know he is trying to avoid this question but!
We have a friend who is a walking encyclopedia, and I was shocked to see him use a dictionary the other day. He laughed and said that is what they are for, use it.

My point is with all his knowledge there is humility and Alex has accepted that grace, so I think God allows him to have that much more head knowledge that he can teach us with.

So, thanks Jesus for using Your wisdom given to Alex to answer so many questions.

And a big thank you to so many of you who have greatly increased my knowledge and understanding through your learning and allowing God to grace you in the same manner.

What I've never understood is how Mary is higher than the angels (though I know that this is the faith of the Church): "More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim; who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify."

But, how? I thought that all the angels in God's Kingdom were holier/higher than us humans, even the Theotokos?

ChristTeen287

Dear Brother Ed,

You need to download Adobe Acrobat in order to read .pdf files. Pray for me.

P.S. I love the picture you posted elsewhere...great beard!

My two cents: in one sense, because Mary was a human being and not an angel, the angels are higher than she is. In another sense (and, to the Church, obviously the sense that matters most), she is higher than the angels, because she is higher than the heavens; He Whom the highest heavens cannot contain dwelled in the womb of the Virgin. She is the Mother of God. No angel can top that.

Dear Friends,

I think Mor Ephrem's statement shows a clear understanding of the Theotokos as "full of grace". But, I'm not sure one can say that the angels are "higher" than human beings. I think they are different, created for different purposes.

My understanding of angels is that they are sent by God to do a specific mission or deliver a specific message when God deems necessary.

They do not display individual free will and creativity, as they were not created that way. The exception to this is Lucifer and his followers, who got creative, with bad results.

Not that our free will and creativity do not often lead to bad results, but we are created with those characteristics, by design.

John
Pilgrim and Odd Duck

Glory to Jesus Christ!
Glory to Him Forever!

I have always thought that once we get to heaven, we are greater than the angels. I mean, do angels partake of theosis to the extend that we do? Also, St. Paul says we will judge angels one day.

Adam

Dear Rose,

Thank you, but I'm nothing special!

Alex

Dear Friends,

The celestial hierarchy as we understand it begins with God, of course, ( ), and then there is the Theotokos, followed by the angels, then by St John the Baptist and so on.

People are made "just a little lower than the angels" as the Psalms say.

Angelic beings are quite powerful, even though they too had their time of trial and a number fell from the Kingdom of God to be devils, as we know.

The Holy Choirs of the Bodiless Powers are to serve and help us in our Life in Christ, and we are to imitate them in the angelic life of constant praise of God and constant service of God as God's messengers into the world in the Name of Christ.

One way of looking at it is that the Angels that are in Heaven were never under the law of sin, as all people are. Those angels that rebelled were consigned to hell.

St Anselm of Canterbury says that angels are pure minds and when their will decides on something, it never changes.

We, on the other hand, are emboided spirits and we can and do change our mind, repent of our sins and wrongdoing etc. something that is characteristic of our human nature.

The Mother of God is above all, including angels, as She was always in the grace of God, sanctified by the Spirit from the moment of her Conception in the womb of St Anne, and living in a dynamic relationship with God throughout her life, and even now in Heaven.

She participates in the Divine Energies in a way no other created being does as a result of her intimate relationship to her Son, God the Word.

That kind of closeness to God is something that escapes even the highest Seraphim.

The great mystery here is that while she is above all as the Most Holy Theotokos, we too are enabled, because of her, to become "Bearers of God" in our bodies - and that is truly the meaning of the Christian life.

Alex

Dear ChristTeen,

We were created "a little lower than the angels" (Ps 8:5, Septuagint) but in Christ we are exalted above the angels. You see Christ assumed the human nature into the Godhead, not the angelic nature. At the incarnation, humanity was raised above the cherubim and seraphim because the Incarnation unites humanity to deity. So Theosis is correct. St Paul even says that we will judge the angels (1 Cor 6:3).

Angels don't undergo theosis, only human beings do. Our Lady is preeminent in this regard.

in Christ,
Marshall

Thanks, all, I've just always wondered about this.

ChristTeen287

Dear Marshall,

While it is true that the angels don't udergo Theosis in terms of the process inaugurated by the Incarnation of God the Word, the liturgical tradition does celebrate them as participating in the Divine Energies of God, radiating them etc.

This is why Angels are portrayed in the same way as the saints are in iconography, although since they are not embodied spirits, their participation in the Divine Energies is of a different quality.

We are made a little lower than the angels only in terms of the weakness of our human bodies, a weakness the angels never shared.

But it is because of our humanity that salvation from sin is possible for us - our humanity enables us to change course, so to speak, and become vessels for the reception of Divine Grace and divinization.

In the end, there will be no real difference between ourselves and the angels. Although we will be able to judge them, we are to give an account before Christ in the glory of His Angels.

St Anselm of Canterbury (or was it someone else?) said that we are to take the place in heaven of the angels who fell.

Pere Lamy of France once saw a demon in the sacristy as he vested for Mass and started to hurl insults at him for daring to come into the Holy Church.

At that moment, St Gabriel appeared to Lamy and told him not to insult the devil.

"If you want to hurt him, respect him - thereby reminding him of what he once was, the great family to which he once belonged, and how low he has fallen from that glory."

Alex

Dear Alex,

You said:
"In the end, there will be no real difference between ourselves and the angels."

The only difference being that we, like Christ, will have bodies. Angels do not and will not.

in Christ,
Marshall

Dear Marshall,

Yes, but we should also remember that our deified bodies will be "spirit-like" and have the SAME qualities.

Like Christ, our deified, embodied spirits will not be under any laws of nature as we know them i.e. going through walls etc. in this life would be no problem.

We know from the Gospel of John that our bodies will be able to travel at the speed of light or faster.

We will feel no pain and would not have to eat - although we could, as Christ did.

Theosis is about transfiguring our bodies into a spiritually energized and transfigured state that will have no practical distinction from the angelic form of the bodiless Powers of heaven.

Alex

I am delighted that the thread has turned to investigating our Christian vocation and the 'theosis'.

This is no less important because of the original question in this thread, which is a fine one!

Is not God, bridegroom, and are we (the Church) not bride? Mary, Mother of God, is in perfection what we all aspire to be, pure worthy brides to the pure and holy God.

It is precisely because the bride shares the honor and dignity of the husband that, that the Church has this awesome gift, to be espoused of God, and to be united to him and sharers of the divine nature.

Mary's espousal, her free consent, and her union with God is how the whole Church is assured that this awesome gift is also the Lord's will for each of us.

Glory to Jesus Christ!
Glory to Him Forever!

I recall reading once that the Orthodox Church views the angels as "redeemed" due to the death and resurrection of Christ. Also, Ven. Anne Emmerich (Roman Catholic mystic) said that the human race was started to fill the seats in heaven vacated by the fallen angels. I just love how the Eastern & Western mystics agree with each !

Hieromonk Elias,

That was really beautiful.

Adam