“More honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, thou who without defilement gave birth to God the Word, O Theotokos glory to thee”
Why do we say that she, Mary the Lord’s mother, is more honorable than Cherubim and more glorious than Seraphim? How can she be considered higher than the angels? We are all asked this question in some form or another. The response is not simple. Is this mere hyperbole, poetic exaggeration, or are we serious?
It is indeed a lofty claim—that a mere human being, regardless of her importance in the story of our salvation, should be elevated above the bodiless powers of heaven. And not just any order of angels: Cherubs and seraphs along with the thrones comprise the top tier of the nine ranks of angels. Nevertheless, angels are not directly involved in the salvation of mankind, except as agents of the Holy Trinity and facilitators, as in announcing the birth of Christ or His resurrection from the tomb. After all, it was an angel who caused so many problems for us in Eden.
It wasn’t an angel that gave birth to the Son of God; it was Mary. Nor was it an angel that spoke for her when the heavenly Father asked if she really wanted to accept the responsibility for bearing His precious son. It wasn’t imposed upon her nor had she been coerced. It was a free choice, and she might have rejected the task, regardless of the honor that went with it.
And when we think about glory, immediately what comes to mind is the praise directed God-ward: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace, good will on earth.” If there is any glory in the mystical condescension of the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the decision made for our salvation that He would become incarnate and enter the creation fashioned by Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who of humankind is more worthy of glory than the one who facilitated in the process?
In honoring Mary we are exalting humanity in its highest and greatest potential. She is a role model for all who would aspire to sainthood from both sexes. In comparing her to angels it’s not to deflate the dignity of the bodiless powers of heaven, but to inflate the latent possibilities of human beings. In an era where scientific wisdom reduces the human being to the status of talking primates, explaining away, denying or ignoring the spiritual potential, not to mention image of God within us, we point to Mary as an example of virtue, humility and dignity in simplicity.
Even on the basic human level she is worthy of our greatest praise. Just from what we know of emotional disturbances, mental aberrations and all the various forms of pathological conditions that confront us as humans who struggle for what is considered normal, she was a superb mother. Yes, finally Thomas recognized Him as “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28); but Jesus was also the Son of Man, human in all ways and therefore subject to the weaknesses, failings and temptations that we all too well understand. And His mother played a large role in guiding Him through infancy, childhood and youth in all ways beneficial to a just, righteous human being. For that also she deserves honor. As the archangel Gabriel said of her, she was indeed “Full of grace.”
I think that when the church places her at one side of Jesus Christ and St. John the Baptist on the other, we are gazing upon two persons who epitomize the highest capacity of humanity even before the gift of the Holy Spirit who comes to us by means of salvation won for us by our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ on that great and sacred day of the holy Pentecost.