Wife of the Father

The seventh century Church Father, Saint John of Damascus seems to be the first to write of Mary as spouse of God the Father. In his treatise on the Assumption, he states that, "It was fitting that the spouse whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine Mansions"⁵. Some medieval writers, such as Rupert of Deutz and Ubertino of Casale continued to use this image, as did Saint Lawrence of Brindisi ⁶. Mary's "espousal" to the First Person of the Trinity became a popular area of discussion in the Ecole Francaise, a seventeenth-century French school of theology/mariology ⁷. Jean-Jacques Olier, a member of this school, seems to have written on this topic more than any other writer ⁸. Here are some samples of his (somewhat exaggerated) views on this subject:[5]Pius XII (1950) Munificentissimus Deus, 20.
[6]O'Carroll 333
[7]Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion (New York: Sheed, 1964): 31.
[8]O'Carroll 272.
[9]Graef 35.
[10]O'Carroll 272-3.
[11]Ibid 273.

Spouse of the Holy Spirit

This title has caught on more strongly than the first two. It is a well-established part of the common series of Marian titles Daughter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son, Spouse of God the Holy Spirit

The Christian poet Prudentius (348-c.405) first used this image in relation to the Annunciation: "The unwed Virgin espoused the Spirit" ²¹.The list of Christians who called Mary the Spouse of the Spirit is impressive: Saints Anselm of Canterbury, Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure, Lawrence of Brindisi, Louis Marie de Montfort and Maximilian Kolbe, to name a few. Various modern popes have used or alluded to it, including Leo XII, Pius XII and Paul VI.
In his encyclical Marialis Cultus, Pope Paul VI wrote that early Christians coined the title Spouse of the Holy Spirit because they saw in the relationship between Mary and the Spirit "an aspect redolent of marriage" ²². Exactly what is that "aspect"?
Some may point to the fact that Mary conceived Jesus by the power of the Spirit as indicating a "marital" relationship. Yet we must not take this too far, for it could lead to the belief that the Holy Spirit is the "father" of Jesus in the Incarnation. Though Mary did conceive Jesus by the power of the Spirit, the latter did not play a parental role in the conception. A parent contributes his or her own substance to the child. Thus the First Divine Person is Christ's Eternal Father Who generates the Word from His own nature, and Mary is truly His earthly Mother who gave Him His Humanity. But the Spirit contributes nothing to Jesus at His conception, and so is in no sense His Father ²³




[21]Ibid 333.
[22]Paul VI (1974) Marialis Cultus 26.
[23]Augustine, Enchiridion XL; Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, pt.III q.32 art.3.