Homily for Solemnity of Mary Mother of God Year B 2020
Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21
Introduction
Happy New Year to you all. The Catholic
Church has an interesting way of starting the new year. First, she obliges us to come to Mass,
knowing very well that we stayed up late last night waiting for the new year,
probably with a drink or two in our hands.
Then the Mass we celebrate, our readings and prayers, hardly say
anything about the new year, but instead focus on the Blessed Mother.
Especially after the year that we have had,
marked by a pandemic, social unrest, a record number of hurricanes some of them
with Greek names, and the ongoing political upheaval, you might be asking, what
our Mass today can speak to us about all these things. Well, thank you for asking.
Today’s Mass highlights three interconnected
themes:
·
First, we mark the eighth day
of the Christmas Octave
·
Second, we celebrate Mary’s Motherhood
of God
·
Third, we mark the beginning of
a new civil year
And so, like God himself, we have a Trinity
of themes in this one celebration.
Scripture and Theology and Christian Life
Let us start with the eight days of
Christmas. Catholics celebrate Christmas,
not for one day, but for at least eight days!
But why eight days? If you were
paying attention during the reading of the gospel you may have been struck by
this verse which said: "When eight
days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given
him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb." The eighth day after the birth of a child was
important for the Jewish people; it was the day of circumcision for boys and the
naming of the child. Some think the
eighth day was chosen to allow the mother to recover from the delivery to be
present and to allow the baby to be strong enough to undergo the ritual. But the rabbis also give some spiritual
reasons, such as to ensure that the child is sanctified by celebrating at least
one Sabbath before circumcision.
Based on this Jewish practice, Catholics celebrate
Christmas for eight days for other reasons.
Only two feasts of the Catholic calendar, Christmas and Easter, can
boast of this honour of having an Octave.
These two feasts celebrate the two principal events of our salvation,
which are, the mystery of the Incarnation at Christmas and the Paschal Mystery
at Easter; on these two hinges, our salvation depends. If we celebrate Mardi Gras for weeks on end, all
the more reason for us to celebrate the central events of our salvation,
especially the birth of the Lord, for at least eight days. Such a prolonged celebration will hopefully
allow us to marinate in the spirit of Christmas so that it becomes a part of
our lives always.
That brings us to the second theme of today,
Mary’s Motherhood of God. The Church
chooses to celebrate this eighth day of Christmas with a Solemnity of Mary as
Mother of God. If you think about it, as
we celebrate the birth of Jesus, God and man, it is fitting that we celebrate
the fact that his mother is the Mother of God.
Because we believe Jesus to be both God and man, we also believe that
Mary is the mother of God. But this
belief is not universal. Both in the
early centuries of the Church and today, some people believed that Mary was only
the mother of Jesus the man, but not the mother of Jesus, who God.
In my home country of Uganda, Mothers are
often called, not by their own names or even the names of their husbands, but
by names of their children. A mother is
often referred to by a phrase that roughly translates as “mother of
so-and-so.” My mother, for example, is
rarely called by her name "Josephine," but is referred to as “Mama
Deo,” after me. Most mothers appreciate
this custom, since it emphasizes their role of motherhood and links them
closely with their children.
It should not surprise us then that Mary is
also honoured in her motherhood. Because
her son Jesus is both God and man, he gives his mother the title of
"Mother of God." St. Paul’s
reminds us of this fact in today’s second reading, saying: “When the fullness
of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to
ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Did you hear that? God sent his Son, born of a woman. God chose this woman, Mary to bring his Son
into the world. What an honour for a
human being, an honour we must celebrate at Christmas.
And now to the third theme of today's
celebration, the fact that we are beginning a new civil year. Some mark the new year by drinking copious
amounts of bubbly, others by making resolutions whose life-expectancy is shorter
than that of a housefly. Catholics begin
the New Year by asking for God's blessings.
The first reading from the Book of Numbers
provides the formula that the Lord prescribed for his priests to use whenever
they blessed the people. It went:
The LORD bless you and keep you! The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be
gracious to you! The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!
After the year we have been through, we
surely need to ask God to bless and keep us, to let his face shine upon us and
be gracious to us, to look upon us kindly and to give us his peace. Only God can do this.
But we must be careful what we mean when we
speak of God’s blessings. There is a
tendency among some Christians today, to say, "I am blessed" only when
they fall into some good luck, when they escape misfortune or just when things
are going well. "I am blessed I
have a job; I am blessed that I walked out of that car wreck uninjured; I am
blessed to have survived COVID-19."
And, Yes, these are God’s blessings.
But we cannot limit God’s action to those things that bring us joy as
the so-called prosperity gospel teaches, suggesting that those who have fallen
on bad luck are not blessed. This thinking
presents us a God who is nothing more than a fairy God-mother dishing out material
favours to us.
Such a God is alien to the God that Jesus
Christ was born to reveal to us. The blessings
God gives us and which we ask him should include much more than material
prosperity and include spiritual wholeness as well. Just listen to the Beatitudes, in which Jesus
teaches us the blessings that we must seek:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are
they who mourn . . . . Blessed are the meek . . . . Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for
righteousness . . . . Blessed are the
merciful . . . . Blessed are the clean
of heart . . . . Blessed are the
peacemakers . . . . Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of
righteousness . . . Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and
utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be
great in heaven.
While God does not send us suffering, being
good and all, he expects that when it comes, we undergo it in a Christian way. The Christian way sees blessings even in
suffering, only because we have hope in the Lord just like God’s servant Job,
like the martyrs, like St. Paul. Moreover,
our problems did not magically end at the stroke of midnight. That is why we must continue seeking God’s
comfort and learn a thing or two about how to live our lives. As some wise person put it, “Our hope is not
in the New Year, but in the One who makes all things new.”
Conclusion
Last night, Pope Francis was not able to
celebrate the New Year vigil services because of painful sciatica. But he sent a message, read at the service,
in which he highlighted the fact that despite the difficulties of the last
year, God has not abandoned us. He
added, that in fact God has shown himself at work in the many acts of closeness
and affection, care and compassion that we have shown each other. He noted that “many people who, without
making noise, have tried to make the weight of the trial more bearable,”
pointing to medical personal and priests in particular. And he reflected that all this goodness can
only happen because of God’s grace, God’s strength.
What we did last year for each other, we
must continue to do again this year. For
some inspiration, we can return today’s short gospel, that described the encounter
between the shepherds and Mary, and the resolutions they each made after that
encounter.
As for the shepherds: “When they saw
this [the baby in the manger], they made known the message that had been told
them about this child. . .. the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen.” In
other words, they went out as missionaries, preaching the good news of the
birth of the Saviour, and joyfully praising God.
As for Mary she did something
different. We heard: “And Mary kept
all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” While the shepherds chose the active part, she
chose the contemplative part, the behind-the-scenes kind of response.
As we begin this new year, we are called to
do both, to the contemplative life hat is, reflecting on all that we have seen
and heard and to the active life, that is, sharing with others all that we have
seen and heard, glorifying and praising God for all we have seen and heard.
And so, on this eighth day of Christmas, we
ask Mary, the mother of God and our mother, who was blessed by God with many
singular favours, to intercede for us, so that we too may receive, not just the
things we want, but the true blessings we need from God. May the Lord bless us in his mercy!
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