Title: Embroidering the fabric of family love with the Trinitarian Mystery.

Abstract:
The Holy Family is an ideal source of inspiration regarding implications of the
mystery of the Trinity for everyday family life. To begin, this paper explores the theological
grounds for the assertion that, as Theotokos, Mary enjoys a unique relationship with each of
the divine Persons. The ways in which other members of the Holy Family cooperated with
Mary in the graces granted her, as both All-pure daughter and Ever-Virgin spouse, are then
considered. It is hoped that the insights gained might provide inspiration to Christians
regarding ways in which they can love members of their own family, whether as children,
spouses or parents.

Embroidering the fabric of family love with the Trinitarian Mystery.

The revelation of the Trinitarian Mystery was made possible with the Incarnation of
the Son of God the Father by the Holy Spirit, whereby the divine Word was inserted into the
human family as Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This paper will contemplate the saintly
Jewish Family of Mary, so as to discern implications regarding our creation in the image of
the Trinitarian God for our everyday family lives. The paper will begin with a brief
justification for discerning ethical implications from our imperfect knowledge of God,
followed by a comparison between the sociological and psychological analogies to the
Trinity. These preliminary observations provide the background for an exploration of the
question as to whether there are grounds to assert that Mary enjoys a unique relationship not
only with Jesus, God the Son, but also with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Within
that context, a consideration of two important graces granted to Mary as Theotokos, namely
that she is Ever-virgin and All-pure, will then be undertaken, so as to discern ways in which
her husband, St Joseph, and her parents, Sts Joachim and Anna, cooperated with Mary in her
irreplaceable role in the saving mission of her divine Son, Jesus.1 Finally, it is hoped that this

1
It might be objected that these names of the parents of Mary are drawn from apocryphal literature.
However it does not necessarily follow that this Jewish couple is irrelevant to Christians simply
because they are not mentioned in Holy Scripture. The fact that Fathers of the Church unhesitatingly
pass on a devotion to the parents of the Theotokos as saints should not be taken lightly. The place of
this couple in the Christian Tradition is further underlined by the consideration that these Church
1
loving cooperation of the members of the Holy Family with each other and with God can
suggest ways in which all Christians can love members of their families according to the Will
of the Triune God, whether as children, as spouses or as parents.2

First it is worthwhile considering whether there is any justification for drawing

implications for love within the family from the Trinitarian Mystery. St Paul writes that every
family or lineage (πατριά) derives its name from God the Father (Eph 3:15). St Athanasius
insisted on an apophatic exegesis of this and similar passages: the divine Father is perfect,
unlike human fathers.3 Human parenthood only participates in its divine Archetype in an
indirect, limited way. In dialogue with Karl Barth and drawing on the teaching of Church
Fathers such as St Irenaeus, Erich Przywara and Hans Urs von Balthasar developed an
approach to theological analogy which stresses the ethical dimension implied ‘catalogically’
by the apophatic approach to analogy of Athanasius.4 For von Balthasar, the revelation of the
perfect and unknown God through imperfect, earthly realities creates a reciprocal tension

Fathers encouraged this devotion officially as bishops in their homilies and therefore as an ordinary
exercise of their teaching office. These bishops are in turn venerated as saints and the segments of
their homilies in which they praise this couple have been included in the liturgical texts of the Eastern,
Oriental and Western Christian traditions alike.
2
Evidently there are other relationships within the family, however these other relationships can be
seen as derived from the three most fundamental bonds. For example, siblings are children of the
same parents, grandparents are parents of parents, aunts and uncles are children of grandparents, etc.
This is true for certain relationships in ‘blended’ families as well, where step-parents or step-siblings
are integrated into the family through a new spousal relationship.
3
St Athanasius, Against the Arians 1.7.23 in St Athanasius, ed. Archibald Robinson, Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers Second Series IV (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976) 320:
“For God does not make man His pattern; but rather we men, for that God is properly, and alone truly,
Father of His Son, are also called fathers of our own children; for of Him ‘is every fatherhood in
heaven and earth named.’”
4
Cf. Aidan Nichols, The Word has been Abroad: A Guide through Balthasar’s Aesthetics.
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998) xiii-xiv:
Przywara and Balthasar share an attitude towards the analogia entis doctrine which
makes that teaching not (as is often the case) a commonplace of metaphysics, but a
specifically religious doctrine of enormous spiritual power. […] That there is an analogy
between our being and God's should not make us seek to domesticate God but, on the
contrary, lead us to recognise an invitation -inscribed in the very nature of our being- to
enter his mystery. The more man is permitted to live his life from out of this divinely
impelled movement, the more he will realise that God is the ever-greater Lord. The more
intimately he shares the divine life, the firmer his grasp of the divine transcendence as
infinitely above him.
2
which heightens the urgency of the heavenly imperative best expressed by Christ: “Be perfect
as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).

It is informative to interrogate the argumentation of Immanuel Kant on the

relationship between ethics and the doctrine of the Trinity, given the ongoing influence of
his thought on Western moral theology:
The doctrine of the Trinity, taken literally, has no practical relevance at all, even
if we think we understand it; and it is even more clearly irrelevant if we realize
that it transcends all our concepts. Whether we are to worship three or ten persons
in the Divinity makes no difference: the pupil will implicitly accept one as readily
as the other because he has no concept at all of a number of persons in one God
(hypostases), and still more so because this distinction can make no difference in
his rules of conduct. On the other hand, if we read a moral meaning into this
article of faith (as I have tried to do in Religion within the Limits etc.), it would
no longer contain an inconsequential belief but an intelligible one that refers to
our moral vocation.5
Kant seems to shrug his shoulders in the face of the ultimate incomprehensibility of the
Trinity. He opts instead for the pragmatic approach of inserting into this doctrine a
justification for our preferred “rules of conduct” so as to give meaning (he seems to mean
usefulness) to what he asserts is an otherwise meaningless (useless) doctrine.

Admittedly this reading of Kant hinges on his phrase “if we read a moral meaning
into this article of faith.”6 If instead Kant had written something like “if we read a moral
meaning from this article of faith,” or even “if one discerns a moral meaning implicit within
this article of faith,” then his statement would take on a tone far more in keeping with the
approach of Church Fathers. The distinction is perhaps subtle, and there may be indications
that Kant intended to speak of this moral dimension as already contained within the belief in
the Trinity, however his insistence that the belief is meaningless without this moral
dimension remains problematic.

Mark Husbands is correct to warn of the tendency of some forms of social

Trinitarianism to blur the distinction between God and humanity at the risk of an essentially
pantheistic idolatry of humanity: God “becomes little more than our experiences of love and

5
Immanuel Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Abaris Books,
1979) 65-67 (emphasis added).
6
Ibid. The original text reads: “wenn man in Glaubensfäßen einen moralischen Sinn hineinträgt.”
3
communion.”7 Husbands finds fault in the approach of Miraslav Volf, claiming that Volf
extrapolates from the teaching of Dumitru Stăniloae, that “the holy Trinity is the model of
supreme love and interpersonal communion,” to assert that the Trinity “is our social
program.”8 However, Husbands does not sufficiently differentiate between those who, like
Kant, do not carefully avoid reading a moral meaning into the Trinitarian Mystery and those
who like Stăniloae, following the Church Fathers, are attentive to a moral meaning implied
in the revelation of the Mystery.

Sociological or Psychological analogy?

I also wish to clarify that I do not envisage the approach in this paper to be
sociological Trinitarianism in the usual sense, and it will become clear that it is certainly not
a conventional psychological Trinitarianism. It is well known that St Augustine claimed to
have found an “image of that Highest Trinity” in the spiritual acts of an individual person.9
It is perhaps less well known that he judged that this psychological analogy was inadequate
to understand the plurality of Persons in God: “three things belonging to one person cannot
suit those Three Persons.”10 This paper does not seek to abandon the psychological analogy,
but rather to find ways that it might be complemented by a sociological analogy, so that the
strengths of each analogy help compensate for the limitations of the other. Although this
paper is focussed more on a theological sociology of the family than on a sociological
theology of the Trinity, it is nevertheless worthwhile exploring the strengths and weaknesses
of these two ways of conceptualising the mystery of the Trinity so as to appreciate their
complementarity.

Von Balthasar is perhaps the theologian in the Western tradition who takes up
Augustine’s warning about a limitation in the psychological analogy with the most creative

7
Mark Husbands, ‘The Trinity is NOT our social program’ in Trinitarian Theology for the Church:
Scripture, Community, Worship, ed. Daniel J. Treier and David Lauber (Westmont, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2009) 120-41, 121.
8
Ibid. 122.
9
St Augustine, On the Trinity 15.25.45 in St Augustin, trans. Arthur West Haddan, Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers First Series III (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956) 223.
10
Ibid.
4
speculation.11 He cites St Thomas Aquinas regarding a key reasoning on which the analogy
is based: “that something can be loved only when it is known and that, in consequence, it is
necessary to maintain an order of the processions (Thomas Aquinas, S. Th. I, 27, 3 ad 3).”12
However, given that Aquinas also acknowledged that “knowledge and love are not really
distinct in God,” this basis for understanding the distinction between the processions could
be seen as “merely read off of the created imago,” amounting to what Karl Rahner described
as “a methodological circle.”13 Rahner points out a further difficulty which compounds this
limitation, namely that even in created spirits, knowledge is never fully antecedent to love
nor are the two ever completely separate: “for every metaphysics of the spirit even knowledge
as such possesses already a moment of volition, hence of love.”14

Von Balthasar sees the greatest drawback of the psychological analogy to be that its
focus on the individual “closes the created spirit in on itself,” and therefore the analogy does
not draw upon interpersonal love as the most fitting aspect of human love under which we
might understand God.15 Rahner refers to this problematic as a “strangely isolated
individualism.”16 Nevertheless, von Balthasar is equally aware of the limitations of
sociological analogies of the Trinity based on interpersonal love, summarising the difficulties
of the two perspectives as follows: “The interpersonal model cannot attain the substantial
unity of God, whereas the intrapersonal model cannot give an adequate picture of the real
and abiding face-to-face encounter of the hypostases.”17 While Rahner limits himself to
pointing out methodological difficulties in the psychological analogy, von Balthasar suggests
that because of these difficulties, the logic of the psychological analogy “calls for a

11
Cf. for example Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory: Vol. II Truth of
God, trans. Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004) 157-70, Hans Urs von Balthasar,
Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory: Vol. III The Spirit of Truth, trans. Graham Harrison (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005) 157-218, and Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological
Dramatic Theory: Vol. III The Dramatis Personae: The Person in Christ, trans. Graham Harrison
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992) 515-29.
12
Von Balthasar, Theo-Logic II: Truth of God, 164.
13
Ibid. 162-164, (citing Karl Rahner, ‘Der dreifaltige Gott’ in Mysterium Salutis II, 394–95).
14
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel (London: Burns and Oats, 1970) 117 note 41.
Rahner outlines various theoretical and methodological difficulties in the psychological analogy on
pages 116-119.
15
Von Balthasar, Theo-Drama III: The Person in Christ, 526–27.
16
Rahner, The Trinity, 119.
17
Von Balthasar, Theo-Logic II: Truth of God, 38.
5
complementary counterimage” to balance it.18 He advocates allowing the two models to
enrich each other while remaining aware of the limitations of both perspectives:

It is inappropriate, therefore, on the basis of the strictness of the [intrapersonal

analogy], where similarity to God lies primarily in the unity of the Spirit, to ban
all use of the [interpersonal analogy], that is, to declare it impossible for the
Persons within the Godhead to say “Thou”. Conversely it is mistaken to take a
naïve construction of the divine mystery after the pattern of human relationships
(as Richard of St. Victor attempted by way of a counterblast to Augustine) and
make it absolute; for it fails to take into account the crude anthropomorphism
involved in a plurality of beings. The creaturely image must be content to look
in the direction of the mystery of God from its two starting points at the same
time; the lines of perspective meet at an invisible point, in eternity.19

In a footnote von Balthasar indicates that his critique of this denial of a divine,
interpersonal “Thou” is directed at Rahner’s position.20 It is perhaps this denial of
communication between the divine Persons which is most indicative of the tendency to
modalism risked by those who follow Augustine and Aquinas in drawing an analogy to the
Trinity based on the rationality of the human person yet neglect to balance this with the
relational aspect of personhood which both Augustine and Aquinas also affirmed. In the
prayers of Christ to our Heavenly Father, the divine Word addresses the divine Father with
an interpersonal ‘Thou.’

Hence in any discussion contrasting psychological and sociological analogies it is

important not to oversimplify the positions of Augustine or Aquinas as if they were opposed
to any reference to interpersonal relationality in conceptualising the Trinitarian Mystery. In
De Trinitate, Augustine balances his psychological analogy, which is centred on our

18
Ibid. 40.
19
Von Balthasar, Theo-Drama III: Persons in Christ, 526–27.
20
Ibid. The footnote cites opposing views of Rahner and Scheffczyk as follows:
K. Rahner, in “Der dreifaltige Gott” in Mysterium Salutis II, 366, note 29, says: “Thus,
‘within the Trinity’ also, there is no reciprocal ‘Thou’. The Son is the Father’s self-
utterance: he must not be imagined as ‘uttering’; similarly, the Spirit is the gift: he must
not be imagined as ‘giving’.” Against this, Scheffczyk, in “Trinität, das Specificum
christianum”, 167, says uninhibitedly: “It is one of the substantial insights of modern
personalist philosophy that, for its own self-being, a spiritual ‘I’ needs to be ‘with’ a
‘thou’.” Accordingly, if we are to understand that God is “love”, and that he does not
first become a lover through contact with the creature, we must assume that he has a
“Thou” within his Godhead.
6
intrapersonal rationality rather than our relationality, by also describing the Trinity as
“mutually interrelated” persons.21 Augustine clearly realises the importance of this
interpersonal dimension, which is more characteristic of a sociological conceptualisation.

It is no mere coincidence that Aquinas sought to describe the divine Hypostases using
the Aristotelean category of ‘relation,’ despite otherwise preferring to focus on an
intrapersonal analogy of the Trinity along similar lines to Augustine. In the Summa
Theologiae, Aquinas asserts that the divine Hypostases are distinct only in terms of real
relations of origin (S. Th. I, 28, 2-3).22 He recalls that the word person was chosen in
describing the Trinity precisely because, unlike hypostasis, ‘person’ has the advantage of
implying interrelatedness “by force of its own proper signification” (S. Th. I, 29, 4).

This relational aspect of the word person was important in fighting essentialist
heresies which reduced the understanding of ‘person’ to indicate only the rationality essential
to personhood (S. Th. I, 29, 4). For example, the error of Sabellius can arise if the category
of relation is understood only in the sense in which it applies to related logical terms found
within the individual mind (S. Th. I, 28, 1). This demonstrates a concern that a psychological
analogy which emphasises an understanding of the divine Hypostases in comparison with the
internal spiritual acts of a person, understood in merely essentialist terms as an individual of
a rational nature, risks a modalist conceptualisation of the Trinitarian Mystery if it neglects
the relational aspect of the divine Hypostases highlighted by the proper meaning of the word
person. Therefore the positions of Augustine and Aquinas are not as straightforward as the
common oversimplification which John Meyendorff caricatures: the approach of the West
after Augustine commonly characterised as essentialist and inviting the suspicion of

21
St Augustine, On the Trinity 9.1.1 (NPNF 125). St Augustine expresses the balance between the
psychological and sociological perspectives as follows: “a trinity of persons mutually interrelated,
and a unity of an equal essence.” Alternately, “trinitatem relatarum ad inuicem personarum” might
be rendered “a trinity of persons related to each other.” Note that Augustine mentions the Persons
before the Essence, contrary to the common critique that his approach emphasises the divine Essence
over the Persons.
22
St Thomas Aquinas treats the issues related to the Trinitarian processions, relations and Persons in
Summa Theologiae Volume 6: The Trinity, ed. Ceslaus Velecky (London: Blackfriars, 1965) 2-63 (Ia
q.27-29 and 40).
7
Sabellianism in the East, compared to that of the East as personalist and being suspected in
turn of tritheism in the West.23

Revelation itself ensures a balance between these two approaches, each of which in
isolation might be open to misinterpretation. The name ‘Word’ lends itself to an
understanding of the divine Hypostases as being distinct in terms of relations of origin
analogous to those which exist between the intellect and its ‘word’ within the psychological
unity of the rational individual (S. Th. I, 28, 1 ad 4). On the other hand, the names Father and
Son balance this intrapersonal connotation with the clearly interpersonal connotation of the
relations of origin (paternity and filiation) that exist between parents and their children within
the sociological unity of the family. If divine Paternity and Filiation are not real relations,
then these divine Persons are not really distinct: “divine paternity is God the Father, who is
a divine person” (cf. S. Th. I, 28, 1 and I, 29, 4). Joseph Ratzinger writes that for “Augustine
and late patristic theology, the three persons that exist in God are in their nature relations.
[…] In God, person means relation. […] the person exists only as relation.” 24 This paper will
take up this insight, that each divine Person is its ‘relation,’ as a starting point from which to
develop an analogy around the ‘relations’ within the family as an alternative to Trinitarian
analogies based on one or three persons. It is hoped that such an alternative analogy, when
fully developed, might in turn indicate implications for an adequate theological sociology of
the family.

A unique relationship between Mary and each of the Persons of the Trinity
Returning now to the issue of implications of the Trinitarian Mystery for everyday
life: if the Trinity is revealed not only as an intellectual truth, but also as an ethical invitation,
how was this revealed? As noted at the beginning of the paper, the revelation of the mystery
of the Trinity was made possible when the divine Son of the Father became incarnate as the
human Son of Mary. Mary and Joseph each received separate revelations that she was to
become a mother “by the Holy Spirit” (Mt 1:18, 24). These revelations are crucial to our

23
John Meyendorff, A study of Gregory Palamas, trans. George Lawrence (New York: St Vladamir’s
Seminary Press, 1998) 228-29.
24
Cf. Joseph Ratzinger, ‘Concerning the notion of person in theology” Communio 17 trans. Michael
Waldstein (Fall, 1990) 439-54, 444.
8
knowledge of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, it was to Mary and Joseph that the
youthful Christ first began to reveal his Divinity and that of his Father, challenging his earthly
parents: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2:49). What better
place to start, then, than the lives of the Holy Family in discerning implications of the
revelation of the Trinitarian Mystery for our everyday life?

Leo Scheffczyk asserted that a deepened understanding of the relationship between

Mary and each of the divine Persons would help “make the mystery of the Trinity more
fruitful in the life of the faithful.”25 Scheffczyk made this assertion in an article written in the
wake of Marialis Cultus, an Apostolic Exhortation with which Blessed Pope Paul VI wished
to stimulate a renewal of Marian devotion in the light of theological reflection. One devotion
to Mary, which has grown up around her relation to the Trinitarian Mystery, invites particular
attention. With this devotion, the special place of Mary in salvation history is contemplated
under a three-fold title: Mother of God the Son, daughter of God the Father and spouse of
God the Holy Spirit.

Several popes have made use of this devotion. For example Pope Pius XII publically
praised the Theotokos as follows:
mysteriously related to the whole Blessed Trinity, in the context of the Hypostatic
Union, […] as first-born daughter of the Father, most exulted Mother of the Word
and beloved spouse of the Holy Spirit.26
Various Roman Catholic saints have promoted this devotion using similar words, perhaps
most famously Louis de Montfort and Alphonsus Ligouri, but more recently Maximilian
Kolbe and Josemaria Escrivá. According to Stefano De Fiores, St Louis de Montford was

25
Leo Scheffczyk, ‘Der Trinitarische Bezug des Mariengeheimnisses’ Catholica (Münster) 29 (1975)
120-31, 129. (My translation of: “Dem Tieferblickenden kann aber bald klar werden, daß es hier um
nichts Geringeres geht, als um die vertiefte Erkenntnis und damit auch um die Fruchtbarmachung des
Trinitätsgeheimnisses für das Leben des Glaubens.”)
26
Pope Pius XII, ‘Bendito seia o Senhor’ (radio broadcast) in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 38 (Rome: Typis
Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1946) 266. (My translation of: “misteriosamente emparentada na ordern da
Uniäo hipostática com toda a Trindade beatissima, com Aquele que só é por essência a Majestade
infinita, Rei dos reis e Senhor dos senhor es, qual Filha primogénita do Padre e Mâe estremosa do
Verbo e Esposa predilecta do Espirito Santo.”)
9
following St John Eudes in promoting this devotion, giving it a substantial tradition in the
West.27

Among theologians who have sought to provide a sound theological framework in

which to understand Mary’s unique relationship with the Persons of the Trinity, the efforts
of Matthias Scheeben are of particular note. He cautiously explored what he called the bridal-
motherhood of Mary as an “analogate” for the procession of the Holy Spirit.28 However, his
tentative proposal was not taken up by other theologians of his era and no clear theological
consensus has been reached regarding this or similar proposals. In order to advance then, this
paper cannot avoid tackling this highly speculative question: Are there solid theological
grounds for a devotion to Mary as associated in a unique way with each of the Persons of the
Trinity, whether as Mother, as daughter or as spouse?

Clearly ‘Mother of God the Son’ is the most solidly substantiated of the three titles,
theologically speaking. The title ‘daughter of God the Father’ does not seem problematic
either, given the belief common to various Christian traditions, that Mary occupies a unique
place in humanity as the most perfect created person among all the children of God. It is no
surprise then that Mary is referred to as both “Mother of the Son of God” and “beloved
daughter of the Father” in documents of the Second Vatican Council, for example in Lumen
Gentium 53.29 However, while the title ‘spouse of the Holy Spirit’ was also suggested in
discussions at the Council, it does not appear in its final documents.30 Clearly this more
controversial implication of a ‘bridal’ relationship with the Holy Spirit requires further
reflection if the devotion is to be given solid theological foundations.

27
Cf. Stefano De Fiores, La Santísima Trinidad misterio de vida: Experiencia Trinitaria en comunión
con María (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 2002) 104.
28
Matthias J. Scheeben, The Mysteries of Christianity, trans. Cyril O. Vollert (London: B. Herder,
1958) 181-89. For a critique of the approach of Scheeben, see Johannes Stöhr, ‘Maria und die Trinität
bei F. Suarez und M. J. Scheeben’ in Sedes Sapientiae. Mariologisches Jahrbuch 4, 2 (2000) 5-47,
35-36.
29
Lumen Gentium: Dogmatic Constitution on the Church 53, trans. Austin Flannery (Dublin:
Dominican Publications, 1975) 414.
30
Cf. Manfred Hauke, ‘Die trinitarischen Beziehungen Mariens als Urbild der Kirche auf dem
Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil’ in Sedes Sapientiae. Mariologisches Jahrbuch 4, 2 (2000) 78-114,
87.
10
 Scheffczyk reviewed the substantial literature which addresses the Trinitarian
dimensions of the special role which Mary has played in the history of salvation, paying close
attention to the history of this theological problem relating to veneration of Mary as spouse
or bride of the Holy Spirit. He noted that, over time, Mary has also been referred to as ‘bride’
in relation to both God the Father and to Christ.31 St John of Damascus wrote one of the
earliest known references to Mary as bride of the Father and St Ephrem of Syria was perhaps
first to refer to Mary as bride of Christ, while Prudentius is usually credited as the first to
describe Mary as bride of the Spirit.32 Scheffczyk highlights the lack of clarity resulting from
this seemingly random attribution of a spousal relationship between Mary and all of the
divine Persons.33 He describes the associated theological difficulties as “seemingly
insurmountable.”34

Of these three possible bridal relationships, the assertion that Mary can be considered
spouse of the Holy Spirit would seem to be that favoured by various popes in recent times.
In addition to the use of the three-fold Trinitarian title for Mary by Pope Pius XII mentioned
earlier, there is the more indirect reference of Blessed Pope Paul VI in Marialis Cultus, who
pointed out that some Fathers of the Church had seen “in the mysterious relationship between
the Spirit and Mary an aspect redolent of marriage, poetically portrayed by Prudentius: ‘The
unwed Virgin espoused the Spirit.’ ”35 More recently, St John Paul II wrote in Redemptoris
Mater that with the Incarnation Mary became the “faithful spouse” of the Holy Spirit.36

The basis for assigning this spouse-like relationship is the scriptural and creedal
teaching that Mary conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit. However, the difficulties associated
with this assertion of a spouse-like relationship should not be lightly dismissed. First, there
is the imperative to avoid any suggestion of a sexual dimension to the relationship between

31
Scheffczyk, ‘Der Trinitarische Bezug’ 120-21. For a more recent discussion focused on this Marian
title, see Stefan Finkl, Maria, Braut Des Heiligen Geistes: Wissenschaftliche Arbeit (Regensburg:
Universität Regensburg, 2011).
32
See also Michael O'Carroll, Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1982), 333-34.
33
Scheffczyk, ‘Der Trinitarische Bezug’ 125-26: “der Problematik der Austauschbarkeit und der
damit scheinbar gegebenen Unschärfe der personalen trinitarischen Beziehungen Mariens.”
34
Ibid. 124: “Bei der Bestimmung dieser Beziehungen Mariens zu den anderen göttlichen Personen
ergibt sich jedoch für das theologische Denken eine scheinbar unüberwindliche Schwierigkeit.”
35
Bl. Pope Paul VI, Marialis Cultus 26 (Sydney: St Paul Publications, 1980) 41.
36
St Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater 26 (Homebush, NSW: St Paul Publications, 1987) 55.
11
God and humanity. Such references are common in pagan mythologies, but are strenuously
condemned in all monotheistic traditions. Moreover, Mary had a human husband, Joseph,
and the reality of their saintly spousal love is not to be ignored in any Marian devotion which
claims solid foundations. Nevertheless, perhaps their spousal yet virginal love points to a
solution to the problem.

The Gospel of St Matthew reports Mary’s consent to becoming mother “by the Holy
Spirit” immediately after the account of her consecration to Joseph as his bride. This
sequence of events is often understood in terms of ensuring a foster-father for Jesus and for
the safeguarding of Mary’s Perpetual Virginity. Yet the question still presents itself, as to
whether this ‘coincidence’ also indicates God’s Will that a loving spousal union between
husband and wife was the fitting context for the miraculous partnership (i.e. consortium)
between the Holy Spirit and the Ever-virgin.

Etymologically, the word ‘consort’ signifies a moral union of persons directed toward
a shared goal or mutual purpose. Fernando Ocáriz articulated the Trinitarian dimensions of
the graces granted to Mary in terms of her special union with the Holy Spirit as follows:
In the mystery of the “fullness of grace” of Mary, […] that is, the fullness of her
being daughter of the Father in the Son by the Holy Spirit, manifests itself to us
as her being so “introduced” by the Trinity into its intimate Life, that her union
with subsisting divine Love, with the Holy Spirit, confers on her soul such a full
identification with the Son, that, in the Son, she is daughter of the Father as fully
as is possible for a created person.37
If Mary can be referred to as ‘Consort’ of the Holy Spirit in this metaphorical sense of being
mysteriously yet really (morally) partnered with that divine Person for the specific purpose
of bearing a Son, then it would seem that there are solid theological grounds to hold that the

37
Fernando Ocáriz, ‘María y la Trinidad’ Scripta Teologica 20:2-3 (1988) 771-97, 781 (My
translation of the following, with emphasis altered):
En el misterio de la «plenitud de gracia» de María, podemos considerar una doble
dimensión: su contenido sobrenatural y la plenitud de ese contenido. Ya hemos tratado
en general de la primera de estas dimensiones, que podemos ahora resumir, y aplicarla
a la Virgen, diciendo que la plenitud de gracia de María, es decir la plenitud de su ser
Hija del Padre en el Hijo por el Espíritu Santo, se nos manifiesta como su ser de tal modo
«introducida» por la Trinidad en su Vida íntima, que su unión con el Amor divino
subsistente, con el Espíritu Santo, confiere a su alma una identificación tan plena con el
Hijo, que, en el Hijo, es hija del Padre con toda la plenitud posible a una persona creada.
12
devotion to Mary as daughter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son, and spouse of God
the Holy Spirit is not merely pious hyperbole.38

In this devotion, a distinct title is allocated to the relationship between Mary and each
of the divine Persons, avoiding the lack of clarity due to the seemingly random assignment
of titles identified by Scheffczyk mentioned earlier. Furthermore, he argued that theological
development in an understanding of the relationships between Mary and each of the divine
Persons would require a “harmonious coordination [or alignment] with one another.”39 This
harmony is achieved in this three-fold devotion in that the titles of Mary align with the three-
fold dimensions of parental, filial and spousal love which weave family life into a unity,
embroidering these titles into an explanatory framework consistent with the scriptural
framework used to reveal the mystery of Trinitarian Love itself, through imperfect terms of
family relations such as ‘father’ and ‘son.’

These considerations bring into view a further possible correlation which invites
analysis. Christians from a wide variety of traditions believe that Mary was granted two
unique additional graces in view of her role in salvation history as Mother of God: that she
is also uniquely All-pure daughter among all the children of Adam and that she remained a
virgin throughout her life as the bride of St Joseph. These three uniquely graced privileges
again align with the three-fold loving ‘relations’ between persons which unite family life –
parenthood, filiation and spousality.

Clearly Mary’s extraordinary title as Mother of God the Son is theologically

warranted, given her bond with Jesus as his human mother. Her unique position among the
children of God the Father is only possible given her conception by Joachim and Anna as
their All-pure daughter. However, it would also seem that her unique virginal partnership
with God the Holy Spirit required the cooperation of Joseph as husband of Mary, his Ever-

38
For comparison, it can be noted that the metaphorically bridal relationship of the Church with Christ
can also be understood as essentially a moral union for a mutual purpose: to “bear fruit that will last”
(Jn 15:16).
39
Scheffczyk, ‘Der Trinitarische Bezug’ 125-26: “daß sich im Laufe der Theologiegeschichte doch
so etwas wie eine Präzisierung dieser Titel durchsetzte und eine harmonische Abstimmung
aufeinander, die den wechselweisen Austausch einschränkte und die sich u. a. schon in dem Ternar
des Rupert von Deutz († 1135) kristallisierte: Maria ist ‘Braut des Vaters, Braut und Mutter des
Sohnes, Tempel des Heiligen Geistes.’ ”
13
virgin bride. These three unique privileges indicate that the Incarnation of the Son of God the
Father by the Holy Spirit did not only involve the cooperation of his Mother, but also that of
her husband and of her parents with the divine Will for their family life. A closer examination
of their cooperation is warranted, in order to discern the extent to which the example of these
saintly relatives might act as a model for how Christians can allow God to embroider their
family life with the mystery of Trinitarian Love.

The cooperation of Sts Joachim, Anna and Joseph in the graces granted to Mary
Devotion to Mary as All-pure has been linked by various Church Fathers to devotion
to Sts Joachim and Anna as her holy parents. The Mother of God is instead contemplated as
daughter of Adam. Joachim and Anna are praised in the Latin liturgy using the words of their
divine Grandson: “by their fruits you will know them” (Mt 7:16-20).40 This line of thought
is particularly rich in the Eastern theological traditions. St John of Damascus connects God’s
choice of this Jewish couple specifically to the pure way in which they lived their procreative
love in accordance with the special place of marital love in the divine Will of God the Father
for humanity:
Joachim and Anna! Having kept the law of nature, chastity, you were deemed
worthy of things that surpass nature; you have given birth for the world to the
Mother of God who knows no husband. […] to a daughter who surpasses angels
[…] O daughter of Adam and Mother of God! Blessed are the loins and the womb
from which you spouted forth!41

In continuity with this insight, St Gregory Palamas is more specific, indicating that the
pure lives of Joachim and Anna as parents are a fitting context for Mary’s unique privilege
specifically as All-pure child of God:
So […] might be born […] the All-pure of those who were exceptionally chaste,
and that chastity, conceiving through the power of prayer and asceticism, might
as a consequence become the mother of virginity, virginity which would bring

40
Gospel reading for the Latin Rite liturgical feast of Saints Joachim and Anna.
41
St John of Damascus, An Oration on the Nativity of the Holy Theotokos Mary 6 in Wider than
Heaven: Eighth-century Homilies on the Mother of God, trans. Mary B. Cunningham, Popular
Patristics Series 35 (Crestwood, NY: St Vladamir’s Seminary Press, 2008) 60-61.
14
 forth without corruption the divinity begotten of the virgin Father before all
ages.42
Gregory does not hesitate to link the fruitful purity of these saintly ‘progenitors,’ through the
virginal purity of their daughter, to its Archetype in the Person of the divine ‘Progenitor.’ I
do not wish to imply that St Gregory necessarily understood Mary as immaculate from the
moment of her conception in the precise way formulated in Roman Catholic dogma. Rather
I wish to affirm the value of the teaching of St Gregory, which so clearly articulates a link
between God’s election of this couple as parents of the All-pure Theotokos and their living a
chaste procreative love for each other. This teaching of St Gregory acts as a healthy counter-
balance to a line of thought that considers the ‘contagion’ of original sin as inseparably
associated with any bodily or pleasurable aspect of spousal love.43

In Roman Catholic theology, a focus on resolving a highly technical intellectual doubt,

as to whether or not Mary was immaculate from the first moment of her conception, (often
in view of this suspicion that the generative act is inseparable from concupiscence), has at
times overshadowed a contemplation of the significance of the indispensable role of Mary’s
parents in that first moment. Unfortunately it is not uncommon to read modern treatises or to
hear homilies expounding the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, in which the role of
Anna and Joachim is not even mentioned. The Apostolic Constitution with which Pope Pius
IX solemnly defined that teaching, Ineffabilis Deus, mentions the saintly Grandmother of
Christ briefly by name, but St Joachim is not acknowledged.44 In Eastern traditions, the
names of associated feasts, for example the Conception of St Anna or the Holy Ancestors of
Christ, provide a wholesome balance by shining a light precisely on Mary’s parents. This
emphasis radically complements belief in the virginal married life of Mary with Joseph by
affirming the fruitfulness of the marital love between her father and mother in such a way
that it becomes an archetypical model for Christian spouses, of the positive role that chaste
sexual love between spouses can play in salvation history.

42
St Gregory Palamas, Homily on the Nativity of the Mother of God in Saint Gregory Palamas, The
Homilies, ed. trans. Christopher Veniamin (Dalton, PA: Mount Thabor Pub., 2013) 336.
43
For a discussion of this balance, see Stylianos Harkianakis, ‘A fundamental and dangerous
misunderstanding of Marriage’ Voice of Orthodoxy 103 (1988) 79, and Constantine Varipatis,
Marriage and the freedom of the human person (Brisbane: Australia and New Zealand Society for
Theological Studies, 1995) 164-72.
44
Bl. Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (Milwaukee, IL: Bruce Publishing House, 1954) 21.
15
 Sts Joachim and Anna exemplify this positive role precisely as the saintly parents of
the maiden whom the Jewish people were awaiting, who would in turn conceive and bear the
Child to be called Emmanuel, “God with us,” (Is 7:14). With the “help of the Lord” (Gn 4:1),
they were part of something that our First Parents were not: the ‘active generation’ of a child
of God in whom God’s image was to be without stain.45 With this thought, we return to the
question of a unique relationship between Mary and God the Father. Perhaps a response can
best be framed as follows: to the extent that our Lady can be revered uniquely as All-pure or
“firstborn” daughter of the Father, it is important to remember that she is also the daughter
of Jewish parents, who placed the fruitful potential of their love for each other and also their
loving parental care for their daughter at the disposal of the Will of the God of their Fathers.46

Turning now to a second special grace granted to Mary, the paper will consider the
cooperation of St Joseph with the Perpetual Virginity of his bride. Joseph’s free cooperation
with this privilege, as husband, is an edifying aspect of their spousal love. If Joseph had
divorced Mary upon discovering that she was pregnant, it is by no means clear that Jesus
would have been recognised unequivocally as a descendant of David, legally speaking. The
Gospel of Matthew highlights Joseph’s status as ‘son of David’ and his cooperation would
seem to have been indispensable to the mission of Jesus, precisely as the Christ, as the
Messiah awaited from the family (πατριά) of David (Lk 2:4).

The angel reveals to Joseph that Mary had conceived “by the Holy Spirit” so as to
encourage him to ‘ratify’ their marriage through the Jewish home-bringing celebration (Mt
1:24). God’s plan required not only our Lady’s consent, but also the free cooperation of her
‘man’ (cf. Lk 1:34) precisely in his role as her loving husband. St Ambrose explicitly
associates Joseph’s life-long respect for the miraculous virginal Motherhood of Mary, as
bearer of the Messiah, with this angelic revelation.47 Returning to the issue of Mary’s unique
relationship to the Holy Spirit with this in mind, perhaps a suitable way to frame our

45
For a discussion of this point and of Mary considered as work of the Holy Spirit, see German Rovira
‘Der dreifaltige Gott und Maria im Geheimnis Erlösung’ in Mariologisches Jahrbuch. Sedes
Sapientiae 4, 2 (2000) 133-38.
46
Pope Pius XII, ‘Bendito seia o Senhor’ 266.
47
St Ambrose, Expositio Evangelii Secundum Lucam Libris X Comprehensa. 2, 6 (PL 15/1555B).
“Ioseph, satis declaravit quod sancti Spiritus templum, uterum mysterii, matrem Domini violare non
potuit.” Stefan Finkl cites this passage mentioning Joseph in reference to a popular alternative title
for Mary: Temple of the Holy Spirit, cf. Finkl, Maria, Braut Des Heiligen Geistes 11.
16
understanding of this relationship is as follows: to the extent to which there is some
theological basis to refer to Mary as ‘consort’ (partner) or ‘spouse’ of God the Holy Spirit in
some metaphorical sense, it is also important to recall her role as Ever-virgin spouse of St
Joseph, her Jewish husband, who placed his earthly, ‘manly’ love for her at the disposal of
the Will of God for her virginal partnership with the Holy Spirit.

A crescendo of ‘yeses’ over three generations of the immediate Family of Mary.

The roles played by Mary and the members of her immediate Family illustrate that
Jesus did not save humanity in isolation. While the Incarnation required Mary’s agreement
to be Mother, the cooperation of both her parents and her husband with the Will of God were
also crucial. Salvation history unfolded as a crescendo of ‘yeses’ which are interdependent
with hers: that of her parents and then that of her husband, culminating in the third generation
with the omnipotent, saving ‘Yes’ of their divine Child to our heavenly Father from the Cross.

At this point, the reader may well ask: How are these extraordinary one-off events of
the past relevant to implications of the Trinitarian Mystery for our ordinary daily life today?
Before proceeding to the concluding section of the paper, however, it is worthwhile pausing
to note that the cooperation of the immediate Family of Mary with the unique graces she was
granted –as daughter, spouse and mother– underscores the advantages of understanding the
family as a lattice-like unity of interwoven relationships. This understanding contrasts with
the Western reduction of family into isolated nucleic units in which husband and wife are
considered as if they are completely severed from their origins as son and daughter.

The inseparable unity of the Immaculate Virgin Mother’s roles as Jewish daughter,
bride and mother challenges this narrow, inward-looking, Western conception of the
‘nuclear’ family, offering instead the anthropologically more wholesome concept of the
‘immediate’ family.48 While it is important to recognise the autonomy of husband and wife

48
For the purposes of this article, the immediate family is taken in its narrowest sense, i.e. one’s
relatives in the first degree of consanguinity (parents and children) and affinity (spouse).
Nevertheless, other members of the extended family of Jesus, the Holy Kinship, are present in the
Gospel accounts, such as Sts Elisabeth and Zacharias, as well as their son St John the Precursor and
various other relatives clearly play a part in supporting Mary in her role in the Incarnation, at the foot
of the Cross, and so on.
17
from the parents they have ‘left’ behind to form their new ‘one flesh’ unity (Gn 2:22-24, Mt
19:5, Eph 5:31), it is also important not to make this relative autonomy absolute, extracting
it from its context, which is the braiding together of two lineages, two branches of the broader
unity of humanity. Only this more integrated understanding of the family can provide an
adequate sociological basis within which to contemplate the implications of the Trinitarian
Mystery of the Incarnation for the human family as a whole. 49

Marriage in the Jewish tradition, and in many other cultures, is not understood
myopically as a contract exchanged simply between individuals, but rather more
circumspectly as the concrete realisation of a broader communal contract (connubium)
between two families or lineages: “we will give you our daughters and take your daughters
in marriage” (cf. Gn 34:9). The bride consents to being given in marriage by her community
(cf. Mt 24:38, Gn 24:50, Tob 6:7-14), and the contract is typically between the bride’s father,
representing her family, and the groom, considered not in isolation but as son, again as
member of a family. The ketubah (written contract) always describes bride and groom as
daughter and son of their respective parents, and in some cases as members of a particular
lineage (or tribe). Mary, as daughter of Joachim, was first given by her family as bride to
Joseph, son of David, before becoming mother of Jesus. A seedling first flowers before
bearing fruit. Incredibly, if Joachim were alive at the time, then all three male relatives would
have taken part in the home-bringing celebration which ratified Mary’s marriage: her father,
her husband and her unborn Son.50

At this point, a further excursus seems necessary to clearly underline the risks of any
Trinitarian social analogy drawn from the ‘nuclear’ family. In the West, the three persons of

49
Archbishop Stylianos Harkianakis writes of a kind of sensus fidelium among the Greek Orthodox
regarding the sacredness of the family considered “not only as a unit of parents and children, but also
as an extended family.” Cf. ‘The importance of the family’ Voice of Orthodoxy, 102 (1988) 62. The
Byzantine Rite fosters this sensus or phronema in part through the frequent invocation of Sts Joachim
and Anna in its liturgies.
50
While the presence of St Joachim in this hypothetical nuptial scene may seem fanciful to some, the
stark reality of Levitical law, regarding the situation Mary seemed to find herself in, brings into sharp
focus the interconnectedness of the roles of these three male relatives. Mary had not conceived her
Son, Jesus, with her husband, Joseph, and so Joseph was required by law to denounce her and she
was to be stoned to death in front of the house of her father, Joachim (cf. Dt 22:21). While it seems
that already in the time of Jesus this sentence was rarely if ever executed, it nevertheless would have
weighed heavily in the background of Joseph’s dilemma.
18
the ‘nuclear’ Holy Family –Joseph, his virgin bride and their divine Son– have at times been
made the basis of a pious analogy to the three Persons of the Trinity. While it is true that the
revelation of the Trinitarian Mystery took place in the context of the holy love between these
three persons, it is important not to uncritically narrow the contemplation of that Holy Family
to these three persons alone when considering Trinitarian implications of the Incarnation of
God in that Family. Otherwise there is a risk that such an analogy might encourage a tri-
theistic misconception of the Holy Trinity itself.

In artistic depictions of the three persons of the Holy Family portrayed in such a
manner as to evoke the mystery of the Trinity, the allusion may be intended as only an
analogy between the communal dimension of the Holy Family and that of the Holy Trinity.
However, in some portrayals there is little to inhibit the inference of a direct correlation:
Joseph with God the Father and Mary with God the Holy Spirit. For example, Cornelius A.
Lapide outlined such a one-to-one correspondence as follows:

Symbolically, in this marriage and family union of Joseph with Mary there was
an image of the sacred Trinity. For Joseph represented the eternal Father, the
Blessed Virgin the Holy Spirit, both because she was the most holy, and because
she had conceived by the Holy Spirit. Christ represented Himself, even the Son
of God. Hence, as there is in the sacred Trinity essentially one God in three
Persons, so here was there one marriage and one perfect family, consisting of
three persons, namely, Joseph, Mary, and Christ [...] This family was then, as it
were, a heaven upon earth.51
While St Augustine writes that he is not convinced by a Trinitarian analogy with the family
(as father, son and wife/mother), St Thomas Aquinas goes so far as to label the analogy as
“prima facie [evidently] absurd.”52
Nevertheless, the task of discerning a Trinitarian dimension to the Holy Family need
not therefore be simply abandoned.53 Perhaps the difficulties inherent in such analogies are

51
Cornelius A. Lapide, The Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew, trans. Thomas W. Mossman
(Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2008) 30.
52
St Augustine, On the Trinity 12.5 (NPNF 156-57) and St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Volume 13: Man Made to God’s Image, ed. Edmund Hill (London: Blackfriars, 1964) 69 (Ia q.93,
a.6, ad 2).
53
Sts Augustine and Thomas were referring to analogies with the family where a one-to-one
correspondance was indicated. It would be overly simplistic to extend their negative judgement
regarding such analogies as automatically applying to more general analogies, such as those
poetically referring to the Holy Family as a ‘trinity’ on earth in the sense of a lovingly united
community of persons.
19
minimised if the analogy is enlarged to consider the broader immediate Family of Mary as a
unity. Instead of considering the three individuals of the ‘nuclear’ Holy Family, an analogy
could be made considering the three fundamental ‘relations’ which lovingly unite family life
– parenthood, filiation and spousality.

A consideration of the Holy Family as an imago trinitatis, in that it is a family united

by these three distinct loving relationships, would seem to resonate with the imago as outlined
by St Gregory of Nyssa. Since the term for ‘man,’ Adam, used in the Genesis account of our
creation in the image of God is general and does not refer to the individual Adam but to the
race of which he was the first, Gregory understands the imago in terms of the unity of all the
members of humanity. In this conceptualisation, the: “whole race […] spoken of as one man
[…] extending from the first to the last, is, so to say, one image of Him Who is.”54 St Gregory
makes it clear that he does not mean merely some indeterminate generality or platonic form
called ‘man,’ but rather the totality of individuals who share a common humanity (and
common ‘relations of origin’), from the first human individual (i.e. the first of our ancestors),
to the last (the last of our descendants). This understanding, which considers the imago in
terms of the human family considered as a unity seems to complement the better known
Trinitarian analogies, those made considering either one or three human individuals.
Understanding the imago in terms of the unity of the human race can counter-balance the
tendencies of these other analogies to either modalism or tri-theism.

Implications for everyday family life

In concluding, we might first realistically observe that while revelation teaches that
humanity is created in God’s image, nevertheless the many limitations, imperfections and
sins of men and women throughout history are a clear reminder of how profoundly unlike
God humanity has acted at times. The paper began with a brief discussion of the assertion of
Przywara and von Balthasar that a humble, apophatic realisation of these imperfections can
be understood to imply an ethical flip-side to the revelation of our status as imago Dei,

54
St Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 16. 16-18 in Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, trans. William
Moore and Henry Austin Wilson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series V (Grand Rapids,
MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976) 406.
20
expressed long before them by St Gregory of Nyssa in terms of a call to cooperate with God’s
work of theosis:
you came into existence as […] a likeness of incorruptible Beauty [...] in the
contemplation of which you become what it is, imitating what shines within
you.55
We also looked at Mark Husbands’ argumentation against understanding the
Trinitarian Mystery as a ‘social program.’ While I agree that we should not “construct
patterns of social community” from the doctrine of the Trinity, this does not preclude the
possibility of drawing from revelation an understanding of the human family as intentionally
‘constructed’ as a loving community in such a way as to act as a kind of language written
into our hearts (Rm 2:15), which is capable, albeit imperfectly, of both communicating the
Trinitarian form of divine Love and communicating this form as a model.56 Is not God the
Father portrayed as using this language to indicate that the disciples should listen to Christ
because he has pleased God as a son pleases his father? (cf. Mt 17:5). Does not that divine
Son use this language when indicating that the divine Will which should be done on earth is
that of a loving Father (cf. Mt 6:9-13, Lk 22:42)? In what sense are we to understand these
revelations, other than that divine Trinitarian Love is a model for human love? It is in doing
the Will of God the Father, as God’s children, that we become a loving community in Christ,
his family as his “brother and sister and mother” (Mt 12:50). St Paul uses a fatherly tone in
calling upon the Corinthian community to imitate him as his beloved children in Christ and
sends them Timothy as a faithful reminder of his example, as his beloved son (1 Cor 4:14-
17).

Husbands asks social trinitarians: “Where is this concrete human community of

dynamic self-giving and love of which you speak so positively?”57 I would respond that the
Holy Family –Jesus, his Mother and their immediate relatives– is such a community.

55
St Gregory of Nyssa, Homily on the Song of Songs 2 in Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of
Songs, trans. Richard A. Norris Jr. (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012) 75.
56
Husbands, ‘NOT our social program’ 133. Regardless of whether Husbands is correct that St
Gregory of Nyssa does not “does not employ a social analogy of the Trinity” in the treatise Ad
Ablabium, it nevertheless seems clear that Gregory advocated understanding our creation in the image
of God in terms of the unity of humanity considered precisely as a social community, that we were
‘constructed’ (made) to be like God, (in On the Making of Man 16) and so to imitate God (in Homily
on the Song of Songs 2).
57
Husbands, ‘NOT our social program’ 125.
21
Together they corresponded with the graces offered them in such a way as to constitute a
comprehensive example of how a human community can take divine, Trinitarian Love as its
model. This Love shines through the example of this Holy Family precisely in the way they
loved each other as parents, as children and as spouses, shedding light on why revelation
resorts to terms of family relationships to unveil the mystery of Trinitarian Love. Each
member of that Αγία Οικογένεια lived out the Will of God through their love for each other
in various ways:

 Our salvation was achieved through the omnipotent obedience of God as Son
to the eternal, divine Father, yet Jesus prepared for this humanly, as a child,
through his loving filial obedience to Mary as his finite, human mother;
 God became a member of the human race through a fruitful partnership
between God the Holy Spirit and humanity, yet the context for this partnership was
the loving spousal partnership of Joseph and Mary as his Ever-virgin bride;
 The eternal Will of our heavenly Father, that parents might bear children
without stain of sin, was finally achieved with the birth of the Theotokos, when Sts
Joachim and Anna corresponded to the Will of God in bearing and rearing Mary
as All-pure daughter.

Given the example of this Holy Family, it would seem that a sound devotion to the Mother
of God as also All-pure daughter and Ever-virgin spouse of God, if understood correctly, is
appropriate to inspire the members of Christian families to love each other according to the
divine Will for our sanctification through family life. While it is important to avoid any
projection of the imperfections of family life into our belief in the Trinity, this should not
lessen the force of the Son of God’s call for us to be perfect in imitation of our Heavenly
Father, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph 3:15).

Following the example of the Holy Family, parents are called to lovingly care for the
children they have ‘generated’ in imitation of the Love of God the Father for the Son. In their
turn, children are called to reciprocate with a loving obedience and respectful honour toward
their parents, in imitation of the filial Love of God the Son for the Father. Finally spouses are
called on to lovingly rejoice, together with their parents, in the joy which mutual, self-giving

22
love open to the divine Will can bring, in imitation of the loving “Joy of the Father and Son”
which is the Holy Spirit, the ‘giver of life.’58

The analogy suggested in this paper is not a one-to-one correspondence between each
member of the ‘nuclear’ Holy Family and a given divine Person. Rather the analogy would
be with the three loving ‘relations’ that weave the human family as a whole into one, focusing
on the love characteristic of parents, children and spouses considered precisely in their
interrelatedness.59 It is hoped that this paper indicates some tentative first steps towards
developing the understanding of the image of God proposed by St Gregory of Nyssa, as
referring to the entire human family considered as a unity, in a manner which might
complement the better known psychological and sociological analogies to the mystery of the
Holy Trinity.

Christian families have an opportunity to evangelise from within a sometimes

narcissistic culture in which the glorification of self makes it difficult to recognise value in
the self-giving to others which is demanded by parental, filial and spousal love in family life.
Every family, extended or blended, will have suffered the imperfections and sin which are a
part of everyday life. Nevertheless, precisely because of our limitations and sinfulness, family
life in all its wounded forms is full of opportunities for children, spouses and parents to
respond to the challenge to joyfully love and forgive one another. That edifying drama of
love has the potential to attract others to Christ, if it seeks to reflect the Source of that love,
“indistinctly… as in a mirror” (1 Cor 13:12). That Source, which can shine so beautifully

58
For St Gregory Palamas, the Son rejoices with the Father who rejoices in the Son, and this Joy is
the Holy Spirit. Cf. St Gregory Palamas, The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, ed. Robert E.
Sinkewicz (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988) 123: “for this pre-eternal joy
of the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit in that he is common to them by mutual intimacy
[χρῆσιν].”
59
Interestingly, like Mary, each person in the Holy Family illustrates, to a greater or lesser extent, all
three roles of parent, child and spouse. Properly understood as a kind of ‘circumincession’ of roles in
each human person, this nexus of roles need not diminish the clarity of the analogy, but rather
confirms the impression of a Trinitarian structure in the family. While this paper has noted the special
role in salvation history which Sts Joachim and Anna played as parents, their spousal love speaks
directly to the place of the marital act in God’s Will for the love between Christian spouses. Similarly,
while the Perpetual Virginity speaks of the special spousal love of Mary and Joseph, it is in their role
as parents that Scripture offers more detail that is relevant for Christian parents.
23
through families, is ultimately the God of Love, a Unity of three loving, inseparably ‘related’
Persons.

24