Homily Mary Mother of God 2019: Responding to the Christmas story in action and contemplation

Homily for Solemnity of Mary Mother of God Year C 2019 

Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

Introduction 

Happy New Year to you all.  And thank you for coming to usher in the New Year with the celebration of Mass.  There are other ways to usher in the New Year. 

• Some do it with the bubbly and fireworks, as you will tonight/did last night. 
• In New York City, they do it with the ball drop in Times Square. 
• And some oriental cultures do it with the dragon dance. 

We Catholics also celebrate Mass and specifically a Mass in honour of Mary, the Blessed Mother, under her title as the Mother of God. 

Scripture and Theology 

Celebrating the motherhood of Mary today, the eighth day of Christmas, jives well with the Christmas season, which is about celebrate the birth of the Saviour.  As a side note, the Christmas season is continuing for another thirteen days until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord on January 13th; so our celebrations, even our Christmas decorations should stay up until then.  Others even leave them up until February 2nd, which marks the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 40 days after his birth. 

In today's Mass, therefore we look both backwards to Christmas Day and forwards to the New Year.  Let us reflect on both dimensions of our readings. 

If you lived next door to Mary and Joseph in Nazareth and you saw her passing by and you said, "there goes the mother of Jesus," nobody would bat an eyelid.  Everybody in Nazareth knew that Mary was the mother of Jesus.  But if you shouted, "there goes the Mother of God," you would be lucky to get away with your life; for according to Jewish understanding, you would be committing blasphemy, suggesting that Jesus, a human being, is God. 

But Christians have always believed that Mary is not only the mother of Jesus, but also of the mother of the Son of God.  For Jesus, is both God and man.  And where do we get this belief?  A few Sundays ago we heard Elizabeth, inspired the Holy Spirit, say to Mary: "And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" She called Mary, the mother of her Lord.  And in the gospel passage chosen for today the shepherds give testimony to this truth. 

• If you recall on Christmas Day we read that the angel appeared to the shepherds and announced that in the city of David a Saviour had been born, who was Messiah and Lord.  And the angels instructed the shepherds on how to find this Messiah, saying: "you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger" (Lk. 2:10-12). 
• Well, in today's passage we hear that the shepherds followed the angel's instructions and they "found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger."  Most importantly, they believed what the angel had told them: that the tiny helpless baby carried by his rather poor parents, was truly the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, God’s Son. 

But some argue that Mary was simply the mother of the man Jesus, but not the Son of God.  But they would be wrong.  It is like if you went to Argentina and they took you to the cemetery where the mother of Pope Francis is buried and said, "There lies the mother of the Pope." Surely you would not protest and say: "No she is only the Mother of Jorge Bergoglio, not the mother of the Pope."  For Jorge Bergoglio is both her son and the Pope.  Similarly, because Jesus is both true God and true man, we can say that Mary is the Mother of God; Mary's motherhood of the man Jesus is inseparable from her motherhood of the Son of God, since he is one and the same person, both divine and human. 

But how did Mary respond to these astonishing events, to becoming the Mother of the Son of God?  The gospel said: "Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart."  Yes, even for a woman singularly chosen by God to be the mother of his son, these things were difficult to understand fully.  She would keep ruminating on them to understand them better, after all she was not God, only the Mother of God.  And as we heard in Sunday's gospel, twelve years later, when she lost and found her son at the Temple, she would respond in virtually the same way.  St. Luke tells us that "his mother kept all these things in her heart."  In short Mary responded by taking the route of contemplation. 

The Shepherds, on the other hand, took the route of action.  We heard that they "made known the message that had been told them" and they "returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen."  Put simply, they went away blabbing about this good news of the angel, the good news they had seen with their own eyes, to anybody who would listen.  The news was too good to keep to themselves.  They just had to tell others about the birth of the Saviour.  Is that not what we do when we find something interesting, a new restaurant, a particularly good TV show or movie, or even a good book?  We cannot hold it within ourselves, we have to share it with others.  As for the shepherds, what they had seen, what they wanted to share, was far more valuable; they had seen the Son of God himself who had now been born as a baby! 

Christian Life 

I would like to take up these two ways of responding to the Christmas Message, Mary's contemplation and the shepherds' apostolic action, and apply them to our new year.  We should consider in this new year, responding to the Christmas message, in both contemplation and action.  These two responses are not mutually exclusive.  Although our particular gifts or vocations, even the needs before us, will direct us to either response, both are in principle possible.  How are you, in this New Year, going to respond to the Good News of Christmas? 

The religious men and women, the monks and nuns in monasteries, like the Poor Clares on Henry Clay Street in New Orleans, the Carmelite Nuns in Covington, have responded like Mary by spending their time reflecting and praying over the mysteries of our Faith.  Similarly, theologians and scholars of the Bible spend their time reflecting on the mysteries of our faith; we reap the fruits of their reflection in the work of people like St. Thomas Aquinas, who have helped us understand better what God has revealed to us in the Bible. 

Perhaps Pope Benedict is a perfect example of how to relate contemplation and action.  He spent his life reflecting with his mind on what we believe.  And like the shepherds, he made know the message of salvation, as a priest, a bishop, a cardinal and for eight years as Pope.  And then nearly six years ago he resigned from the Papacy, so that he would best serve the Church like Mary by living a life of contemplation and prayer.  He left the work of the shepherds, the work of proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation to his successor, Pope Francis. 

Let us resolve in this new year, to do likewise, living lives that have both contemplation and action.  We can set aside some time in our day, to reflect on the things of God, both in our hearts and in our minds, perhaps by switching of that darn television for a moment, or turning off the radio as we drive to work, and instead saying the rosary  in which meditate on the mysteries of the Faith. 

And as for sharing the Good News of Christmas like the shepherds, let us follow the injunction of St. Francis of Assisi to his brothers: "preach always, sometimes with words."  Let people not only hear our words about the faith, but let them also see this good news in our actions. 

Conclusion 

Because we need God's help, for the success of our work this year, let us invoke the words given to Moses and Aaron: "May the Lord bless us and keep us; may he let his face shine upon us and be gracious to us; may he look upon us kindly and give us peace," this year and always.