” “An invitation to "carefully consider the importance of the presence of Mary in the life of the Church and in our personal life". It was made today by the Pope, who devoted the first general audience of 2008 to the figure of Mary, "the Mother of God" (Theotokos), from the name that was officially given Her by the Council of Ephesus of 431, until the doctrine of Mary, summarised by the eighth chapter of the "Lumen gentium". "The qualification of God’s Mother, so deeply linked with the Christmas festivities recalled Benedict XVI , is the fundamental appellation with which the community of believers has always honoured the Virgin" and that "aptly expresses the mission of Mary in the history of salvation", because "any other qualification given to the Virgin has its foundation in Her calling as the Mother of the Redeemer, the human creature elected by God to accomplish the plan of salvation". Also at the centre of the representation of the Nativity, the heart of the Christmas festivities, "we find the Virgin Mother who offers the Holy Child up for the contemplation of those people who go and worship the Saviour: the shepherds, the poor people of Bethlehem, the Three Wise Men". In addition, the devotion of the Christian people "has always considered the birth of Jesus and the divine motherhood of Mary as two aspects of the same mystery of the incarnation of the Word" (continued). ” “
