Daughter of Promise

Written originally on December 12, 2020

She was the daughter of a promise, sent to be kept for the promised, who, by his death, fulfilled the promise.

What a glorious mystery it is for the Virgin Mary, the daughter of a promise made by her parents to God, to be kept in the temple and to bear a child at the young age of around 16 years old. Granted that the age of consent during her time was 13, she was not concerned for the world. Her main and constant concern was to serve God fully with every single action throughout her day.

She did not know how to sin. She lived a life so pure that she never once thought about the curiosity of exploring what sin is.

She was sent to the temple to keep her parent's promise, and yet she was kept there for the fullness of time, in which the promised, Jesus Christ, God incarnate himself, would come to the world through her. I find this occasion rather a mystery of the unspeakable nature surrounding St Mary. Aside from the traditions of our church, we have little to scrap by about how she regarded herself as the Mother of God, and yet St Ignatius, the first patriarch of Antioch (after whom every Syrian patriarch is named) and the child whom Jesus called when he said "Let the children come to me," this very saint explicates within his letters some very mysterious information that the Virgin Mary herself sent him as a response to his letter. In it we examine the true humility that this beloved Virgin had. He wrote the reply sent to him, which says:

The lowly handmaid of Christ Jesus to Ignatius, her beloved fellow-disciple. The things which you have heard and learned from John concerning Jesus are true. Believe them, cling to them, and hold fast the profession of that Christianity which you have embraced, and conform your habits and life to your profession (as bishop). Now I will come in company with John to visit you, and those that are with you. Stand fast in the faith, and be a man; do not let the fierceness of persecution move you, but let your spirit be strong and rejoice in God your Savior. Amen.

In this humble letter, St Mary does not classify herself as a superior figure, even though she bore God himself in her body. St Mary always classified herself as a lowly handmaid ever since the angel Gabriel spoke to her saying that God will be born of her. She took in Christ and his word and his lifegiving salvation and instructed others, as an equal-to-the-Apostles, to cling to the faith of Him whom she carried. She, then, was carried into the eternal life after carrying the Author of life itself.

Wonderous are your works, my Lord, and glorious is your mother the Virgin St Mary, the Theotokos.

May the intercessions of our holy mother St. Mary be with us all and guide us to the true faith.

Your brother,

Mena Basta