Mass Readings for The Solemnity of Mary, The Holy Mother of God:
Numbers 6.22-27 Psalm 67.1-2, 4-7 Galatians 4.4-7 Luke 2.16-21
Today we are called to “ponder” the mystery of Christ’s birth, as Our Lady Mary did when hearing the report of the shepherds of their encounter with the angels. What the shepherds had to say must have taken her back to the visitation of Gabriel to her when, as we know, she was baffled by what she was told: “how can this be?” we remember she asked. Nonetheless, she agreed to serve the Lord, and receive Him so that the project of our salvation could proceed. Now, in light of the birth of Christ, the baby in her arms, she begins to reflect, to ponder; as should we. Ponder not only that birth of Christ into history, but also ponder Mary’s part in it; and then our own stories of faith, of our receiving by grace God into our lives.
We honour Mary as the Mother of God, because she is. She is the mother of God by virtue of bearing the Christ child, but we are also acknowledging that it is from her flesh that the Saviour took flesh; and that is an enormous mystery in which we stand in awe.
Now we know Mary also to be the one of the Immaculate Conception, that is, born without original sin so that Christ in his flesh would be free of that corruption. It’s from this fact that we see her as a “Second Eve” remembering that Adam and Eve, that mythic couple of the Garden were also free of original sin: they, of course, commit the original sin. Our earthly mother, in fear and lacking in trust in God’s providential care, gives into the temptation to make of herself and Adam, indeed, all humanity, gods unto ourselves not needing the Creator and Sustainer of all things.
Of course, we do need the true God, and tragically, we repeatedly discover what Eve found to be true: we cannot become gods no matter how much knowledge we might accrue, how much technology we amass.
We are not truth, we are not justice, we are not love – but rather creatures in constant need of them; in need of instruction in them; in need of constant reminder of them as the necessary elements of human life.
Mary reverses the sin of our first parents. As the “new” Eve she places her complete trust in God, and so for us becomes a model of faith; and the Church then confesses her to be our “mother.” And she is our mother by virtue of our being the adopted children of God, brothers and sisters of our Lord through baptism; but this doesn’t make Mary our stepmother, or our mother after the flesh. Rather, she is our spiritual mother – the mother of God becomes our Godmother; our sponsor and support as a fellow disciple who has walked that difficult path of faith and now helps us along our way by her good example and her constant prayer for us.
In my own pondering, this leads me to ask, what about our own godmothers? And all the other people in our lives who have a spiritual duty toward us? And what of our own obligations as godmothers, godfathers, sponsors of children and adults who have come to the font of baptism, who have been sacramentally reborn through Christ’s death and are now, like Mary free of original sin, but nonetheless remain in peril of sin in a world filled with temptation?
Have we looked to our heavenly godmother, Mary, as the model of faith? Or have we relied upon the world’s estimation of our goodness to gauge whether we’re doing a good job as examples of faith and godly virtue? Do we offer sound advice, good counsel that comes from the timeless truth of the Apostolic faith and not from “worldly wisdom” that takes the latest fashion as new revelation? Do we recommend to others that they pay some attention to Mary, to explore the significance of both her celebrated ‘yes’ to God, but also to her humility and obedience that saw her raise up Jesus in a village in Galilee, faithfully carrying out her vocation in obscurity through the years that led up to Jesus’ public ministry?
We need to understand the significance of Mary’s ‘yes’ so that we can appreciate the importance of the ‘yes’ we give. To say it was no small thing on Mary’s part will seem obvious, but our own small ‘yes’ has an enormity to it in terms of our lives and the lives of those around us.
As I grow older, I come to appreciate the obscurity, the hiddenness of my life in this big world and vast universe, and I have come at times to wonder what the point of my vocation is given what little influence I think I have on others for good or ill. There would appear to be vastly more powerful personalities at work in the world, the rich, the politically powerful, the celebrities of our pop culture, all seem to exercise a massive influence, mostly for the worse, on our society. Who am I to stand against this torrent of degradation? How are my modest and flawed efforts in anyway stemming the tide, or bringing people to see the truth of things, and so, be saved?
I think Mary is instructive in this; Mary as an historical figure – that is, Mary as one of us, a human being living in time, and in a place that at the time of Jesus’ birth would have been regarded as of little importance, far from the centre of action in the ancient world.
I mentioned that we regard Mary as our “mother”, and the Church has done so from its earliest days; she was there at Pentecost and remained central to the growing community of disciples.
There was a contemporary of hers who asserted his spiritual fatherhood over the world, or at least that part of the world he controlled; and that was the famous Caesar Augustus. We remember him as the one who declared that all the world should be registered for taxation.
I’ve mentioned before that at the time of Jesus’ birth, Augustus held the title “Son of God” and everyone in the empire would have been regularly reminded of this when they took out their money to pay for something: every Roman coin bore the image of Caesar and the inscription, Divi Filius, that is “Son of God.”
And, of course, there were statues of Augustus everywhere; and upon his death he was declared a god in his own right; temples went up all over the Empire dedicated to worshipping his genius.
And he was put forward, not least by himself, but others, as a paragon of virtue, the example that every good Roman, and citizen of the Empire generally, should emulate. He took the title Pater Patriae, “Father of the Nation (or literally, the fatherland).
The Roman Senate voted a great golden shield be hung in the assembly hall of the Curia, inscribed in big letters all the virtues of Augustus: valor, piety, clemency, and justice.
And, or course, none of this was to be questioned, but constantly reaffirmed and celebrated against considerable evidence that Augustus really wasn’t all that.
He was a politician, and from the historical record we know one of the craftiest. He was selective in his justice, and strategic in his exercise of mercy. He signalled virtue through his public piety, he took the position of “High Priest” of Rome, that is he was the Pontifex Maximus, but he lied to the Senate, engaged in assassination, paid off rivals, exiled others, and simply killed those who got in his way. And it’s not like no one knew it.
Yet Augustus set for himself the task of the moral renewal of Rome and its empire. He harkened back to the good old days of the republic when sturdy farmer citizens were the backbone of the society, its strength in the face of adversity, the source of its success. He passed laws restricting the wealthy from being ostentatious with their wealth, preventing them from overspending on clothes, for example. He distributed bread to the poor, and entertained them by sponsoring festivals and parades; and even included them in his will, giving every citizen of the city of Rome some pocket money out of his immense fortune.
But as far as being a role model, as far as being that example of the virtuous Roman, knowing the truth of it, his successors embraced more and more the hypocrisy of Augustus, and the great renewal of civilization devolved within a hundred years into political and economic crisis.
Insofar as Augustus was a “godfather” to the empire, it was a godfather in the more sinister sense that word has now thanks to a rather famous movie about the fictional Corleone crime family. And in following him, many were led to ruin.
Against Augustus we set the modesty, humility but also bravery and fortitude of Mary.
I can’t help but remark on the fact that, indeed, there are statues of her just about everywhere. Her image on many a religious medal, her titles advertised to the world in the names of churches dedicated to her: Regina Mundi, Our Lady of Good Counsel, Queen of the Apostles, and so on. Augustus, for all the images made of him, the surviving images, the bits and fragments, of considerable number mind you, sit in museums as objects of curiousity but in no way of devotion.
We celebrate Mary as the best of us; and an example of frail human determination strengthened by grace to live out our vocations, to answer God’s call in whatever circumstance; to do so in confidence even as we cannot really know the true impact of our witness to those who encounter us.
While Christ partook of Mary’s flesh to become a man; we partake of his flesh and blood in the blessed sacrament to grow toward his divinity.
We are to give over our flesh in service to our Lord; to be his hands and feet, his eyes and ears, to announce with our mouths his good news.
And we look to Our Lady Mary, to show us how.
Amen.