Jan. 1, 2025 Galations 4:4-7 Luke 2:16-21
Today, the first day of the calendar year, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Mother of God. This solemn feast is the Octave Day of Christmas—Christmas, the day we celebrate Mary's giving birth to Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man. The Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, was sent to sanctify the womb of the Virgin Mary and to cause her to conceive the eternal Son of the Father in a humanity drawn from her own.(CCC) Therefore Mary is rightly called the Mother of God since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, Jesus Christ, who is God himself (CCC). This title “Mother of God” has been an explicit part of the belief of the Church since about the second century--probably beginning with St. Hippolytus of Rome, who seems to have formulated the title “Mother of God” as a legitimate development of the titles “Mother of my Lord” and “Mother of Jesus” found in the Gospels. The passage we heard from St. Paul's letter to the Galations, “God sent his Son, born of a woman...” was crucial in the development. Crucial, also, to our understanding of her Motherhood of God is that Holy Mary, full of grace, was “more than a merely passive instrument of God. The Incarnation of God took place through her active consent as well.” (Y-C) As St. Thomas Aquinas writes, “She uttered her 'Yes' (Be it done unto me according to thy word.) in the name of all human nature.” The conception, bearing and birth of Christ Jesus was the fruit of a mutual covenant of love between God and Mary, a covenant that was never broken and now reaches to eternity.
When we think of Mary as the Mother of God, we might tend to think of her as bearing and raising Jesus when he was an infant and toddler and young boy, but having not much else of an influence on him as he matured. St. Luke's gospel has a narrative that contradicts such an idea. It tells us that Jesus went down to Nazareth with his parents, that he was obedient to them, that Mary kept all these things in her heart, and that Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man. (Luke 2:51-52) We all cherish the wise things and sayings that our own mothers taught us. My mother was always quoting her version of the Book of Proverbs: As you sow, so shall you reap. Well, so it seems, Jesus also cherished his mother's wisdom. In Chapter 1 of Luke we read Mary's magnificent song of praise to God called, the Magnificat, after its opening word in Latin. In it Mary praises God with regard to her own impending giving of birth to Jesus, the Son of God. Mary, the Bride of the Holy Spirit, rhapsodizes that her soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and her spirit rejoices in God her savior, just as in Luke 10 her Son Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit and gives praise to his Father. This is the magnificat, the hymn of praise to the heavenly Father, by her Son. In hers, Mary is elated that God lifts up the lowly—the lowly and humble of the land (such as herself)--and casts down the great and mighty from their self-exalting thrones. Just so is Jesus rejoicing in the Spirit that the mysteries are hidden from the wise and learned, but are revealed to the childlike. We can coin a phrase based on another and say, “Like Mother, like Son.” Mary's canticle of praise epitomizes the entire Gospel that her Son will be teaching: in its turning of all worldly conceptions on their heads: the conceptions of rich over the poor, of the sophisticates over the simple, the powerful over the weak, the self-righteous over sinners. These wordly conceptions are all turned upside down in the proclamation of the Good News by Jesus. Jesus Christ our God and Savior is indeed the son of Mary, who is also our mother.
In today's gospel pericope we see that Mary is not only the Mother of Jesus, God and Savior, but is also the Mother of all who will be saved through him. On Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, Mother Mary is surrounded by the Apostle shepherds who in the power of the Holy Spirit will bring the saving gospel to all people by radiating out from Mary's presence. We see a foreshadowing of this in the stable scene today where Mother Mary and Joseph and Jesus are surrounded by the shepherds of Bethlehem who will go forth from them on the birthday of Jesus with the announcement of the new born Savior, Christ the Lord. And Mary and Joseph and Jesus remain with us. In heaven they are always praying to incorporate us more and more into the Holy Family that is the Church. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. From the cross, Jesus explicity gives his mother to us all through the person of St. John when Jesus says to him, “Behold your Mother.” As an aside, remember, also, when you are in need: “Go to Joseph!”--the husband of Mary.
Yes, Mary, Mother of God, is our mother, and, mirabile dictu, WE are also the mother of God. Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my mother.” I think this means that the more our lives conform to those of Jesus and Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, the more each of us helps to give birth and nourish the body of Christ that is the Church which exists for the salvation of all people. We are called by God in Jesus and Mary to surrender to God's will as did each of them: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word,” Mary says to the Father through the Angel of the Annunciation. Jesus prays like his Mother during his agony in the Garden saying, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; still, not my will but yours be done.” Like Mother, like Son. We are all called to this same surrender to God's holy will.
Mary gave of her own body and blood to Jesus as he was formed in her womb. She is, therefore, the Mother of the Eucharist, the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. Now, in Holy Communion, Jesus will give us of his own glorified body and blood which he received from Mary. The Word and Eucharist together of this celebration is the seed of the Holy Spirit placed in the womb of our hearts as it is proclaimed and given to us, and we receive it with the word “Amen” spoken in faith, hope and love. May we all together give birth to Christ and bear Christ into our world. It would be the greatest blessing of this new year, 2025, which Pope Francis has designated “The Holy Year of Hope.”
