her of God.

I shall answer this objection by putting a question. Did the mother who
bore us have any part in the production of our _soul_? Was not this nobler
part of our being the work of God alone? And yet who would for a moment
dream of saying "the mother of my body," and not "_my_ mother?"

The comparison teaches us that the terms parent and child, mother and son,
refer to the persons and not to the parts or elements of which the persons
are composed. Hence no one says: "The mother of my _body_," "the mother of
my _soul_;" but in all propriety "my mother," the mother of me who live
and breathe, think and act, _one_ in my personality, though uniting in it
a soul directly created by God, and a material body directly derived from
the maternal womb. In like manner, as far as the sublime mystery of the
Incarnation can be reflected in the natural order, the Blessed Virgin,
under the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, by communicating to the Second
Person of the Adorable Trinity, as mothers do, a true human nature of the
same substance with her own, is thereby really and truly His Mother.

It is in this sense that the title of _Mother of God_, denied by
Nestorius, was vindicated to her by the General Council of Ephesus, in
431; in this sense, and in no other, has the Church called her by that
title.

Hence, by immediate and necessary consequence, follow her surpassing
dignity and excellence, and her special relationship and affinity, not
only with her Divine Son, but also with the Father and the Holy Ghost.

Mary, as Wordsworth beautifully expressed it, united in her person "a
mother's love with maiden purity." The Church teaches us that she was
always a Virgin--a Virgin before her espousals, during her married life and
after her spouse's death. "The Angel Gabriel was sent from God ... to a
Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, ... and the Virgin's name
was Mary."(221)

That she remained a Virgin till after the birth of Jesus is expressly
stated in the Gospel.(222) It is not less certain that she continued in
the same state during the remainder of her days; for in the Apostles' and
the Nicene Creed she is called a Virgin, and that epithet cannot be
restricted to the time of our Saviour's birth. It must be referred to her
whole life, inasmuch as both creeds were compiled long after she had
passed away.

The Canon of the Mass, which is very probably of Apostolic antiquity,
speaks of her as the "glorious _ever