appliedmariology:

“The Holy Scriptures, which instruct us, and the life of Mary, mother of God, suffice as an ideal of perfection and the form of the heavenly life.”

— St. Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373), De virginitate. Quoted in Mary and the Fathers of the Church by Luigi Gambero (Ignatius, 1999) p.104.

Our society proclaims that we are the maker of our own reality. That we set the rules. This is a lie. We can barely determine whether to turn right or left on most days. We cannot even answer the most basic question: Why am I here?

We need guidance. We need icons. We need a structure in which to understand the life that we have been given by God. And we need to be able to see. To experience how this structure is lived in the real world.

The structure is the Holy Word of God. And the icon? Mary the Mother of God. The Theotokos.