Readings of the day: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21
Does anybody here besides me find how we, the Church, present and venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary to be, in a word, ambiguous? We celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary, today especially, as Mother of God.
We believe, going back to the Council of Ephesus of 431, that Mary is the Mother of the Christ, or Christ-bearer, but that she is more than this. To call Mary the Christ-bearer was fine, Ephesus said. But if she were only Christ-bearer, this could lead to confusion among the faithful (and even bishops and other authority figures in the Church) that somehow the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, can be divine and human, but never at the same time. To avoid any confusion, the bishops of the Council of Ephesus emphasized the divine nature of the Christ (without, let us be clear, ever forgetting his human nature, distinct but never separate from his divine nature). Ephesus first called Mary not only Christ-bearer but God-bearer or Mother of God.
We believe Mary to have been preserved by God from sin, from the very moment of her conception in the womb of St. Anne. We believe that, at the end of Mary’s earthly life, God took her, body and soul together, into heaven; that neither Mary’s soul nor her body ever knew decay. We believe that Mary was ever-virgin, before and after the birth of Jesus.
We venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary as the model or ideal image of the Church. And we are right to believe and venerate all these aspects of Mary. Yet, in a way, does our celebration; our veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all these events and aspects unique to Mary not make Mary so different from us, or so much greater than any of us, so that imitating her in our lives becomes unrealistic?
None of us were conceived immaculately, without sin from the very moment of our conception. None of us have given birth and raised a child who is actually God. None of us, at least before the return of Jesus Christ in glory at the end of time, will be assumed, body and soul, into heaven.
This is the ambiguity about our celebration and veneration of Mary of which I speak. So, if we cannot imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary (at least not immediately) in many of the ways in which we celebrate her—immaculately conceived; the Mother of God, the bearer of God in the flesh into our world; assumed body and soul into heaven—how can we imitate Mary? How can we follow Mary’s example, so that we become, as well as possible, the Church of which Mary is the ideal image or model?
Our readings today give us clues as to how we can imitate Mary, Mother of God and Mother and model of the Church, and how we can imitate Jesus, even though, of course, none of us is God. Today St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians reminds us of who we are in relationship to Jesus by reminding us of Jesus’ (and so our) relationship with Mary. “When the fullness of time had come,” St. Paul says to the Galatians, “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.”
Unless any of us were born into this world by some other miraculous way, I am sure that all of us, like Jesus, were “born of a woman.” All of us, like Jesus, or Mary, or any person who has ever lived, have been born of a human mother. This common (we can say, biological) feature to all of us is so important to our Church, insofar as our relationship with Mary and with Jesus, that Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, begins its final chapter, on “The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the Mystery of Christ and the Church,” with the words we hear today from the Letter to the Galatians.
Jesus was “born of a woman.” So was each of us. This is our starting point, sisters and brothers, when we consider our relationship with Jesus through Mary, Mother of God; when we consider our identity as Church, in relationship with Mary, Mother of the Church. “Wishing in his supreme goodness and wisdom to effect the redemption of the world, ‘when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman… that we might receive the adoption of sons and daughters,” this final chapter of Lumen Gentium begins.
We, who have each been born of a woman, have been redeemed precisely by God’s choice to enter this world as one like us, born of a woman; born of the most blessed among women, Mary, Mother of God. So when we honour the dignity of women (beginning with, but not only, our mothers)—in our homes, in our public places, in our workplaces, in our Church—in all our actions and our words, we honour the way in which God has chosen to save us: By being born into this world by a woman, Mary, Mother of God. When we speak and act so that women, our sisters in God’s creation, are spared any form of violence especially on account of gender; when we speak and act in ways that value and revere women as true subjects of God’s beautiful creation, and not mere objects for economic or other selfish, loveless gain, we honour the way in which God has chosen to save us.
In his homily two years ago today, on this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, Pope Francis reminded us of the essential role of Mary for our salvation, and connected this with the honour and respect due women today, honour and respect too often denied our sisters in the image of Mary of Nazareth. Pope Francis says, strikingly, “From [Mary], a woman, salvation came forth and thus there is no salvation without a woman… Humanity’s salvation came forth from the body of a woman: We can understand our degree of humanity by how we treat a woman’s body. How often are women’s bodies sacrificed on the profane altars of advertising, of profiteering, of pornography, exploited like a canvas to be used? Yet women’s bodies must be freed from consumerism; they must be respected and honoured.”
The more we respect and honour women in our lives and in our world, the more we draw close to Mary, Mother of God through whom our salvation entered our world. The more we respect and honour women, the better we are, as individuals and as a Church.
How else might we honour, respect, and revere women? How else, by honouring, respecting, revering women, might we glorify God by being more like Mary, our mother; Mother of God; Mother and model of the Church? We might honour women, and so honour Mary and, ultimately, give glory to God, by actively striving for peace. Women in our world are disproportionately poor; disproportionately among the people subject to unpaid, unrecognized, if not slave labour; disproportionately affected by war and violence; overrepresented (along with children) among those who flee their homes and countries because of violence.
Yet today the Book of Numbers gives us an ancient blessing. It is God’s blessing through Moses. It is God’s blessing to “the children of Israel”; to us as God’s children, born of and saved through a woman: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”
Today we, the Church, also mark the World Day of Peace. And, when we think of progress toward greater peace in our world, we might think first of working to end war and violence on this greater scale. But we hear in Numbers this prayer for peace. Have we ever prayed this for our mothers; for our fathers; for the members of our families and households, for peace in our homes and among our loved ones? Have we ever prayed this prayer for somebody we have difficulty loving as God loves us, especially if this person is a member of our family or somebody close to us: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace”?
This prayer, my sisters and brothers, is one way in which we might honour God; our God who chose Mary to be Mother of God; Mother of our salvation; Mother of the Prince of Peace, our Lord Jesus Christ. Mary’s eyes were the first to gaze upon the infant Saviour of the world. Mary’s arms were the first to cradle the Son of God. Mary’s body gave birth and nourished the Christ child. Mary’s heart, as Luke’s Gospel reminds us beautifully today, was the first to treasure and ponder what all this would mean for the world: That God had chosen her, the Virgin daughter of Nazareth, daughter of God, to bring our salvation into this world; to raise him alongside faithful St. Joseph; to be with him as he served, healed, preached, suffered, died, rose and ascended to heaven; to be taken, body and soul, to God’s and her Son’s side in heaven when her earthly life was ended.
On this day, like Mary we, too, might let our hearts treasure and ponder. We might pray and act for the Lord’s peace in our world, in our country, in our families and households. In this we honour one another, each born of a woman; we honour, venerate, imitate, and celebrate Mary, Mother of God, Mother and model of our Church; our mother; the mother of the Salvation of the world.
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