Blessed are you among women! Analysis by St. Maximus the Confessor

Editor's Note: St. Maximus the Confessor wrote a biography of Mary, the Theotokos. Publication details can be found at the bottom of the post. Today, we provide an excerpt in the context of the Annunciation, where, shortly after the Archangel Gabriel's salutation and conversation, Mary travels to see her cousin Elizabeth, whose praise of Mary and the embryonic Jesus Christ is theologically assessed by St. Maximus. As we approach the feast, may we discern this most profound event which the earth grew to witness starting on this feast day.

St. Maximus the Confessor, "The Annunciation" # 26:

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” For the fruits of other women were under the curse from the original sin of Adam and Eve, and by carnal marriage and the corruption of sin they entered into the world. But the fruit of your womb alone is blessed, for he was conceived neither by the seed of a man nor by the corruption of sin, but without seed and in incorruption he put on flesh from you. And “he committed no sin at all,” and “no guile was found in his mouth” (1 Pet 2.22). And not only is he blessed and sinless, but by the grace of his divinity, he gave blessedness to the nature of humanity, which had been punished by the curse, and the most-blessed Lamb of God took away the sins of the world. Then the wonderful Mary, adorned with every grace, as she surpassed nature in every aspect, being a mother and a virgin, so also here, as she was a cause of prophecy for others, she herself thus spoke words full of prophecy, full of grace and prayer and theology, for she was full of the Holy Spirit, as the evangelist informs us: “Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for be has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. Behold, from now on every generation will call me blessed’” (Luke 1.46-48). Her soul was filled with all humility, meekness, and fear of God, and that is why God her Savior had regard for her: as it is said by the prophet, “to whom will I have regard but to the bumble, the meek, and the one who trembles before my words?” (Isa 66.2). Thus he found Mary blessed and had regard for her, and he saw that there was no one like her among the human race. For this reason he saw fit to dwell in her, and from her he took on a human body and came to seek the lost. And the Most High made the cause of his Incarnation holy and made the dwelling place of his divinity blessed among every generation. With these words the blessed mother of Christ confirmed the words spoken by Elizabeth about her and the archangel’s announcements that were spoken by the Lord: as she says, “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Luke 1.45), for those things that the archangel announced were spoken by the Lord, by whom he had been sent.

SOURCE:

Maximus the Confessor, St., The Life of the Virgin, translated by Stephen J. Shoemaker, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 57.