Mary, Mother of God
See Commentary on Luke 2:16-21 in Luke 2:1-21
Homily 1 - 2006
What I like most about Mary is what Luke said of her today: As for Mary, she treasured these things and pondered them in her heart. Interesting that she didn’t ask God to change anything; she didn’t insist that God to show her the way clearly because she knew God was there; and God, being God, all would be well. But she was alert to God there, seeking God there, responsive to God there as she let life touch her: she treasured these things; and drawing on her accumulated wisdom, she pondered these things in her heart, nourished by her familiarity with his Scriptures:
I also like the blessing of Aaron that we heard in the First Reading today: May the Lord let his face shine on you and be gracious to you. May God uncover his face to you and give you peace. We now know, of course, that the unaided human mind can never see God. Looking at the shining face of God would be like looking at the shining sun. You can’t see it. It blinds you. All you see is darkness. (But not because God’s not there – precisely because God is there.)
Remember Yuri Gargarin, the first person in space. Back in 1961 he came down to earth and declared, as a good Communist, “I saw no God up there”. Just as well, if God was “up there”, I have lost interest in such a God! Not as far back, Kerry Packer was declared clinically dead for some time. On recovery, he said he saw no God – because no God is there. Just as well, again. If God could be seen by his human mind unaided, untransformed, I would have lost interest in God again! I am reminded of a story told about Fr John Brosnan, for many years chaplain to Melbourne’s gaols. He was doing a graveside burial one time for a long-serving prisoner, and was talking about some of the man’s better points. One of the other prisoners also present said: 'Fair go, Father, he didn’t even believe in God'. John Brosnan quickly replied: 'He does now!'
Since we can’t see God’s face unaided, the best we can do is to become familiar with the face of Christ. That takes a lot of Mary’s pondering of the Gospels. Yet, though we can’t see God, can’t even see Christ now, since his death and resurrection, we can be with them in the dark (or the blinding light –same thing!), keeping our own pretensions totally out of the way, empty, but there, and alert! That’s usually called meditation.
Happy treasuring, Happy pondering, Happy “being there” in the New Year!
Homily 2 - 2012
I like Luke’s comment about Mary: She treasured these things and pondered them in her heart. It offers a window into the source of her greatness and gives us something we ourselves can imitate. She treasured these things … She was open to experience; she was receptive. She pondered her experiences in her heart… In her receptivity she was open to explore meaning and to learn. Specifically, she was searching for the presence of God, there in her experience, and was ready to cooperate with the invitation of God.
To me, this is the deeper meaning of her virginity. More than a physical state, it is a spiritual orientation. Virginity is essentially pure potential, receptivity, and possibility of cooperation. In its turn, the potential of virginity strains forward eagerly to the fulfillment of maternity – the giving and nurturing of life.
As spiritual orientations, we can all imitate both Mary’s virginity and her maternity, whether we’re male or female, married or unmarried. Like Mary, the virgin, we can be open to experience, and receptive to reality, seeking there the presence, the call and the empowerment of God. Like Mary, the mother, we can cooperate with God in giving birth to and nurturing the growth of God’s Kingdom.
Being sensitive and responsive to the presence and call of God in our lives calls, from us, as it did from Mary, for the discipline of pondering - pondering in our hearts. It means observing our inner reactions to experience: and noticing the deeper hopes and fears, the deeper desires and the angers, stirred by our experiences. It means learning to discern, through a growing familiarity with our inner world, where God is working in our lives. It leads in time to our being able to draw on the power of the creating God and cooperate effectively with God. The Mary who pondered her unfolding life in her heart was the Mary who was able to say: Be it done unto me according to your word.
And here [I believe], in this unreserved cooperation, lie the fullness and the fulfillment of all love. A mature love moves beyond even the deepest and most beautiful intimacy to a whole-hearted sharing of vision, of values, of priorities, and of commitments which, in turn, lead on to willing and eager cooperation with the beloved.
Like Jesus, with Jesus, Mary’s spirit exulted in the God… who raised the lowly, who filled the hungry with good things, and who showed unconditional mercy to a world whose only hope for salvation is always forgiveness and the conversion that forgiveness awakens and empowers. Even at the foot of the cross, Mary said “Yes” to the determined love of her Son that led him to accept his own brutal murder. She did not talk him out of his determination but supported him in it. Mary shared with Jesus his total commitment to exposing to us and saving us from the endemic mutual destructiveness that scars our world.
Our world would be a better world if we got to know Mary better, if we shared, with her, God’s vision for our world … and, if we, like her, committed ourselves wholeheartedly to God’s project for the world’s salvation – whatever the cost. As I have said: That would mean for us, as it meant for Mary, a genuine readiness to ponder our life-experiences in the deeper recesses of our hearts, to learn to be receptive to the presence of God in our lives, and to find ourselves empowered and eager to say, like Mary: Be it done unto me according to your Word.