our lady the theotokos:

“And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anuish for delivery. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God” (Revelation 12:1-2, 4-6).

Everything the Catholic Church believes about Mary is intimately bound up with what she believes about Jesus Christ (CCC 487).

First, we proclaim her to be the Theotokos – the birth-giver of God. Some in the early Church insisted that Mary should only be called Christotokos – the birth-giver of Christ. Yet the Church at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus proclaimed her Theotokos, because Christ is one divine person with a divine nature and a human nature (Council of Chalcedon). To call her merely the birth-giver of Christ is to separate the two natures into two persons.

The Theotokos is ever-virgin, that is, a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Christ (Second Council of Constantinople, Lateran Synod). Christ’s birth was miraculous not only in that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit without the help of a man, but also in that in his birth, his mother’s bodily integrity was lovingly preserved. “Just as the Lord entered through all closed doors, so he came out of an original womb, for this virgin bore him truly and really without pain” (St. Ephrem the Syrian).

The Theotokos is also all-holy and immaculate (Divine Liturgy), preserved from the beginning of her existence by the intervention of God from all sin (Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus). Throughout her whole life, the Theotokos was truly “full of grace” (Luke 1:28), redeemed in a special way by her Son (Lumen Gentium 53, 56) in order to show that all he touches becomes holy. St. Simeon the New Theologian says, “being himself at once God and man, his flesh and soul were and are holy - and beyond holy. God is holy, just as he was and is and shall be, and the Virgin is immaculate, without spot or stain” (On the Mystical Life, Discourse XIII). The Church calls this her Immaculate Conception, or else the Pre-purification of the Theotokos.

The Church also professes that at the end of her life, Our Lady the Theotokos was assumed by her Son body and soul into heaven where she reigns as the Queen of Heaven (Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus). The Byzantine Catholic Church celebrates this as the Dormition (falling asleep) of the Theotokos, by which we mean that the Theotokos truly did die a natural (yet painless) death before being resurrected by Christ and assumed into heaven. The Kontakion of the Dormition reads, “The grave and death did not detain the Theotokos. She intercedes without rest and is our unfailing hope of protection; for he who dwelt in the womb of the Ever-Virgin transferred to life the Mother of Life” (Menaion, August 15^th).

Catholics do not worship the Theotokos, but rather venerate her as she predicted, “For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). We honor her and imitate her because of her humble readiness to serve the Lord in all things. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Similarly, we also honor all the saints have have pleased God since time began (Divine Liturgy), asking them to pray for us. They in turn offer our prayer to God like fragrant incense before his throne (Revelation 8:4).