+MARY, GOD’S MOTHER AND OURS 1st January, 2025
Let me begin by wishing each and all of you a very blessed and joyous New Year!! Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, the mother of God. As I read through the first reading from the Book of Numbers, I wondered why this was chosen for this Feast. But then as I reflected on how the Lord would have Aaron and the priestly family bless the people of Israel, I realized the Lord would have them do so in a very motherly way: They are to ask the Lord to bless and keep them, let his face shine upon them, be gracious to them, look upon them kindly and give them peace.
Certainly this is what our Loving Lord Jesus and his Mother wants for the Church today, to be blessed and kept safe from harm, to know the shining face and graciousness of God so as to radiate this kindness and peace throughout our world.
This is what this Christmas Season is meant to convey as we just heard from St Paul telling us that in the “fullness of time, God sent his Son.. to ransom those under the law” so that we might live as the very children of God. The proof that we are the children of God “is that God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” If God is our Father, Mary also is the Mother of the whole human family.
We are to imitate her motherhood in all that we think and do, live lives full of grace as we tell of her every time we say the Hail Mary. Someone sent me a quote from Meister Eckhart some time ago that he said: “We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly, but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of Man is begotten in us,” end of quote.
The eternal Word taking flesh was never meant to be just a beautiful Christmas display but what God has intended to continually take place in each of our hearts as we, like Mary, surrendered to the presence of divine grace from day to day. We have endless opportunities to surrender to the mystery of the Incarnation throughout our daily lives. The early theologian, St Athanasius, reminded us long ago that “God became human that we might become divine.” And I am reminded of those words of St Paul where, at one point later in life, he says: “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.. I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.”
The grace of Mary’s motherhood is being offered to each of us gathered here this morning. What the Shepherds saw when they found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger, is the way God has taken on our human flesh and entered fully into the lowliness of each of our lives.
Jesus taking bread at the last supper, breaking it and giving it to his disciples saying: “This is my Body” and then the cup saying “This is my blood of the covenant” as we are about to do at this altar, is a sharing in his own divine life. Like Mary, we are to be living messengers of God’s very own life. So let us be grateful for this wonderous mystery and with Mary keep all these things, reflecting on them in the depths of our own hearts.
Num. 6:22-27; Gal 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21