Homily for Sunday, 15 January 2023– Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Readings of the day: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

This time of year is a time of change. We change to a new calendar year. I am not sure if I speak for many of us, but it takes me a few days (or weeks?) at the beginning of a new year before I am able to write this year’s and not last year’s date on papers I am signing, without having to think about it.

How many of us have ever made New Year’s resolutions, or made these this year? We commit to changing old behaviours and habits for our own health, or we resolve to be kinder to ourselves or others somehow.

Not long ago, we were in the midst of the Christmas season, the celebration of Jesus’ birth. It is a time of joy, not only for religious reasons, but for many of us (I hope) a time to be with loved ones, family, and friends. If there is a time that reminds us that we, human beings, are both sacred and social creatures, Christmas is it. And Jesus willed to share in our sacred and social human nature in all things but sin. In this we rejoice. And we had four weeks of Advent before Christmas, as a preparation of our hearts and minds to celebrate Jesus’ birth and our hope in his return at the end of time.

Now we are back in Ordinary Time. It is quite the change from Advent and Christmas. Some of my closest friends and family members know how excited I get (and poke fun at my expense for this) about being able to wear green vestments at Mass for the first time since November. Liturgists (or maybe it is just me) get excited about such things. But really, we find ourselves past one of the high points of the Church year, back in Ordinary Time.

We could say (and we would be right) that Ordinary Time does not have to be ordinary in the sense of boring or nothing special. Ordinary Time, these thirty-four-plus weeks of the Church’s liturgical year, is a season of counting time. Toward what do we count time in the Church? In Ordinary Time, we count or keep time with hope toward Jesus’ return in glory on the Last Day. The “ordinary” in Ordinary Time does not mean boring, nothing special, but it means to count, keep track, or number something. Still, this is quite a sudden change from Advent and Christmas back into Ordinary Time.

John’s Gospel today speaks of more or less sudden change of another kind. John the Baptist, who has been baptizing people in the Jordan River, sees Jesus approaching him and exclaims, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”! Something is about to change in this encounter between Jesus and John, which ends with John baptizing Jesus. Something is about to change for the entire people of Israel of John’s and Jesus’ time. Something is about to change for the whole world. Something is about to change for us.

John’s Gospel is clear that Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist changes John the Baptist most immediately of anybody. John may have been part of a movement of Jewish people in Israel who withdrew from the noise and distractions of the big cities and towns, mainstream Judaism either of the Pharisees with their strict adherence to the Jewish Law or the temple priests, to pray and encounter God. The baptisms John had been performing carried the main meaning of repentance, washing clean of sin as much as any physical or ritual impurity. Baptisms like John was performing were quite common, even in more mainstream Judaism, in Jesus’ time.

But then Jesus meets John the Baptist at the River Jordan. John says in our Gospel that he had been baptizing with a certain hope for the Messiah, the coming of the Saviour of Israel and the world. John was doing something similar to what we are doing, sisters and brothers: Counting toward or counting on (anticipating) with hope the coming of the Saviour, only we are counting with hope toward the second coming (we Christians believe) of Jesus Christ at the end of time. John the Baptist was counting on the first coming of the Messiah: “I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he [the Messiah] might be revealed to Israel.”

And John is able to identify Jesus quickly when he arrives on scene: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”! John is changed radically by this encounter with Jesus. No longer will he need to baptize with water in anticipation—as a counting toward in hope— of the coming of the Saviour of the world. The Saviour is there, standing before John: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

The meaning of baptism, as much as the role of the Baptist, also changes radically in this encounter between John and Jesus. No longer is baptism, or the role of John the Baptist, primarily about repentance or washing clean of sin or other impurity. This is still, to the present day, one of many meanings of this very complex ritual. Baptism continues to include a dimension of cleansing from sin, both original sin that we inherit through the generations from the first people who lived on earth and the sin we commit. Baptism continues to include a dimension of receiving and being sealed by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Those of us who have attended a baptism of an infant may remember that, after the baptism itself, the infant is anointed with chrism, a very strong, pleasant-smelling oil. This is the same oil we receive at confirmation, a sacrament of renewing and intensifying the gift of the Holy Spirit with which we are first sealed in baptism.

But the first and foremost meaning of baptism, ever since John baptized Jesus in the Jordan, is that we become more like Jesus who, by becoming human and by being baptized by John, became like us in all things but sin. By our baptism we are made members of a priestly, prophetic, and royal people, the Church, in imitation of the high priest, the prophet of prophets, the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. In baptism, sisters and brothers, we have a share in Jesus’ life and ministry: A life in service and love toward one another that draws us to God, that draws us toward eternal life. In baptism we especially have a share in the death of Christ so that, by Jesus’ resurrection (in which we also share through baptism), death is transformed. Death is made no longer final. Eternal life in heaven is our final state.

By being baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist, Jesus changes for us the meaning of baptism. In baptism, who we are radically and suddenly changes. We become sharers, full participants, in the eternal life Jesus offers us by his becoming human, his baptism, his life, death, and resurrection. Each of us becomes like Christ, the perfect human being, as Christ became like us. Each of us becomes, in a way, “another Christ.”

We (very purposefully on the part of the Church) hear John’s Gospel account of Jesus’ baptism as we begin Ordinary Time. All this happens: We become more like God “who humbled himself to share in our humanity” in the person of Jesus Christ, from the moment of our baptism. Hopefully (let us pray for this) our becoming more like God, more like Christ, by the grace of God will help us to be kinder, more just, and more loving toward one another. All this happens as we continue to count forward in hope toward the return of our Saviour on the Last Day. All this happens as we continue to count forward in hope, the true meaning of “Ordinary” Time, toward eternal life.

Homily for Sunday, 8 January 2023– The Epiphany of the Lord

Readings of the day: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

Imagine that you could travel to anywhere in the world you wanted. Where would you go?

I lived in Paris, “the City of Light,” for over five years while completing a doctorate, so I would put Paris at the top of my list of recommended destinations. As a Basilian priest, I have been blessed to have served in or visited all five countries in which my order serves: In France, the place of our founding in 1822, Annonay, “Historic City of the Hot Air Balloon,” and Paris. In Canada, I have lived in Toronto, “Hogtown, Hollywood or Broadway North, Queen City, TO, The Six,” and in Windsor, “Automotive Capital of Canada.” I have visited Basilian communities in Mexico: Tehuacán, “Place of Gods” and Mexico City, “City of Palaces.” I have served in the United States, in Irondequoit, New York, “A Town for a Lifetime,” which is a suburb of Rochester, “The Flower City.” And I have served in Colombia: In Cali, “A Branch of Heaven,” Santa Marta, “America’s Pearl,” Medellín, “The Eternal Spring,” and Bogotá, “2 600 Metres Closer to the Heavens” because of its altitude above sea level.

For over two years now already, I am happily settled back in Edmonton, “City of Champions,” the city where I was born and grew up. Edmonton’s nickname is not derived from some of the greatest professional sports teams ever assembled, especially in the 1980s, but from its recovery after the “Black Friday” tornado of 1987. *It always brings me great joy to return here to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, to this faith community, my home parish from when I was twelve years old until my early twenties. Now, Sherwood Park does not have a claim to fame or a showy nickname or motto. We could call it, “The Park,” or “The World’s Largest Hamlet: Guinness Book World Record Holder.” No, maybe it is better to be humble, without a nickname, a motto, or international fame.*

If there is one place in the world I have yet to visit where I would like to go, it might be Rome, The Eternal City, with Vatican City, the centre of the Catholic Church. I still have never been there. I have been to Bethlehem, where our Gospel today says a very important event took place. Bethlehem was the destination of a pilgrimage of magi or “wise men from the East,” who followed a star to a humble manger where the newborn Jesus, the Saviour of the world, lay.

Bethlehem, by its Hebrew name, is “the house of bread.” It was the birthplace of the biblical King David. But, whether in King David’s time, or Jesus’ time, or our time, Bethlehem has never been a very important city on the world stage. To this day Bethlehem is really a large town, a suburb overshadowed by nearby Jerusalem.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear today that even the wise men stopped in Jerusalem first, at Herod’s palace, on their way to Bethlehem. Herod and his line of kings had built the temple of Jerusalem, the centre of the Jewish faith at the time, into a structure larger and showier that it had ever been. Bethlehem was… just… little, by comparison to Jerusalem.

I doubt the wise men would have considered Bethlehem a top destination to visit. Could we imagine them showing up at the local camel rental agency one day?

— Yes, we will need as many camels as there are of us, with unlimited mileage; destination is Bethlehem, round trip, following a star.

— “So, three camels,” the camel rental agent asks, “Right”?

— Well, there are three gifts: Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. There may be more or fewer than three joining us on the trip. Can we add an extra driver on the largest camel, just in case?

— Sure, no problem. But you do realize how long a trip Bethlehem is from here by camel, right? And are all of you aged 25 or over? If not, those camels will require extra insurance.

— Yes, all of us are over 25. And we’ve worked out in our GPS the distance to Bethlehem. We considered flying, but, oh, the baggage fees for all the gold, frankincense, and myrrh we’re carrying… We’ll be fine, but one of our vehicles will need to be a sport utility camel, with extra luggage room. We have no budget limit; we’re astrologer-kings, so more than willing to spend good money on reliable camels.

— Okay, no problem at all. That will be ten shekels, taxes included. Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, I’ll just need your signatures at the bottom of the papyrus, and your initials where I’ve highlighted. And if Bob the fourth wise man decides to join you, an extra camel is free of charge. Have a great trip!

— That’s so generous of you! Thank you so much!

Bethlehem probably was not the top of the wise men’s list of destinations. But, for astrologers, people who followed the stars for a living, this pilgrimage would be once-in-a-lifetime. And, besides, a prophet had written years before that the wise men would encounter a certain Messiah had been born in little Bethlehem: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.”

Why astrologers from the East who were almost certainly not Jewish Israelites would fulfill a prophecy of ancient Israel (Micah, in this case) is a mystery. But it was not the first time, nor would it be the last, when people would set out to travel off the beaten track.

Toward the end of the Book of Isaiah—the part of Isaiah from which we have just heard—the prophet is trying to convince an entire people to travel off the beaten track. This part of Isaiah is about the time when the people of Israel had been in exile in Babylon for around seventy years (many generations). Isaiah tries to convince them to return home, because a new power, Persia, has conquered Babylon and has decreed that the Israelites may return home. But Israel lay in ruins, its first temple (before Herod rebuilt it, centuries later) destroyed. Isaiah convinces a small fraction of the people in exile in Babylon to return and rebuild their homeland. But this small remnant of Israel is just enough to save Israel as a nation.

Yet Isaiah does more than to convince this faithful remnant to return home. Isaiah preaches that Israel will draw peoples of other nations to itself: “Nations shall come to your light, [bringing] gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.”

Matthew interprets this prophecy from Isaiah in light of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ. The “wise men from the East,” following a star to the cradle of the infant Messiah in little Bethlehem, represent for Matthew “the nations”—all the non-Jewish, non-Israelite peoples of the world, who were and still are most of the inhabitants of the world—who would “come to [God’s] light,” to God’s Messiah, God made flesh.

Only by setting out off the beaten track, toward a nation in need of rebuilding, would a remnant of the people of Israel in Isaiah’s time not only be able to rebuild Israel’s ruins, but they would be able to welcome the rich gifts of the nations of the world. And, in turn, Israel’s God, our God, would be revealed in glory and truth to those other nations.

The same thing happens with the magi in Matthew’s Gospel: They are bold enough to set out, off the beaten track. They are momentarily sidetracked in Jerusalem by the evil Herod. They return home from Bethlehem “by another road” to avoid Herod. But only by being bold enough to travel beyond the conventional—not to a top destination, or even to a place of comfort—do the “wise men from the East,” who represent “the nations” (all of us, sisters and brothers), encounter our God in human flesh. Only so are they “overwhelmed with joy.” Only so is God in turn revealed or made known to all the nations on Earth.

Epiphany, the name of today’s celebration, is a Greek word that means making known. So, ideally, God is made known to those who set out off well-traveled paths, not to top destinations. Will this change our travel plans, sisters and brothers? Will this make us more like the wise men in Matthew’s Gospel or the remnant of Israel who returned home to rebuild their nation? To encounter God-made-flesh, might we need to travel to such hot destinations as deliberate kindness, as reconciliation especially with people we may find troublesome, whom we have hurt or who have hurt or sinned against us? Might we need to go to places like attentive listening, prayer, generosity with the goods of the Earth with which we have been blessed? Those are some of our Bethlehems today.

These may not be (at least at first) places of utmost comfort, but they are the places, the words, the actions by which we will encounter God. We will be “overwhelmed with joy.” And from there we will be able to make God known, in glory and truth, to all the nations and peoples of the Earth.

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This homily was given at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Sherwood Park, AB, and St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada. The OLPH version of its text, in Paragraph 3, is above, marked with asterisks (*). Here is the version of the text for St. Joseph's College:

It always brings me great joy to serve here at St. Joseph’s College, where what is true, right, and beautiful is faithfully taught, studied, and lived, according to this place’s motto, Quæcumque vera doce me: “Teach me whatsoever things are true.”

Homily for Thursday, 5 January 2023– Christmas Weekday

Readings of the day: 1 John 3:11-21; Psalm 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5; John 1:43-51

Today John’s Gospel picks up just as Jesus has chosen Andrew and Peter to be his first disciples. And immediately after choosing Andrew and Peter, Jesus decides “to go to Galilee.”

I find it interesting about this beginning of our Gospel reading today that Jesus’ choice “to go to Galilee” after calling Andrew and Peter to be his first disciples immediately suggests that Jesus is not in Galilee, the region of Israel that includes his hometown, Nazareth. And neither are Andrew and Peter, Galilean fishermen whose calling to be Jesus disciples Matthew, Mark, and Luke all situate on the Sea of Galilee—John differs from the other Gospels in this respect—near their homes when Jesus chooses them to be his disciples in John’s Gospel.

Andrew, Peter, and also Jesus are away from home when Jesus’ call of his first disciples takes place. So are Philip and Nathanael, the next two people John says became Jesus’ disciples.

Sisters and brothers, I think that here John is suggesting that to be Jesus’ disciples will occasionally (if not frequently) mean being called beyond our homes, figurative if not literal and physical; beyond our comfort zones.

We hear that this is true of Andrew and Peter. This is certainly true of Jesus. His being called outside of his home, his comfort extended all the way to his being called to die on a cross outside of Jerusalem, the city at the heart of Israel, yet so far and different from Galilee’s peace and tranquility.

To have been called outside of their home, their region, their comfort was true of Philip and then Nathanael. This is clear from Nathanael’s response to Philip’s invitation to be the disciple of this “Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” Nathanael asks Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth”?

Nathanael is called at that moment beyond the comfort of his own biases. It was probably a bias against people from Nazareth shared among many people. The reason for this bias, or Nathanael’s anti-Nazareth comment, is unclear. Maybe Nazareth was the rival village to other Galilean communities like Bethsaida, home to Philip, Andrew, and Peter. Maybe this bias was like Edmonton versus Calgary today… It is hard to say.

Yet Philip’s invitation calls Nathanael beyond this bias, beyond identifying strictly with his home, his region, or any other comfortable markers of identity. Now Nathanael will identify first as a disciple, an apostle of Jesus.

But how jarring this must have been for Nathanael! Incredulous (but, as Jesus says of him, without deceit), Nathaniel’s first question of Jesus is, “Where did you get to know me”? To know Jesus is an important theme throughout John’s Gospel and letters in our Bible. Remember the Gospel reading of a couple of days ago: John the Baptist, by his own admission, did not know Jesus until God revealed Jesus to him as “the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” And only then does John readily testify that Jesus “is the Son of God.”

Nathanael does something very similar to John the Baptist earlier in John’s Gospel: Jesus replies to Nathanael that he got to know him when he saw him “under the fig tree.” Nathanael gets to know Jesus at the invitation of Philip, and is then able to identify Jesus, very correctly: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel”!

Nathanael’s correct identification of Jesus as “the Son of God” is possible, even from within a (somewhat) comfort zone. Our worship here, sisters and brothers, is good and right, yet possible from comfort. Jesus will always acknowledge our good will—our rightness and goodness in loving and serving him as his disciples, and in loving and serving one another in Jesus’ name. But Jesus will call us, little by little, beyond our comfort, until we are ready, he says, to “see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending above the Son of Man.”

In these days in which our Church mourns the death yet celebrates the life of a true Servant of the Servants of God, Pope Benedict XVI, I am reminded of a line from his 2007 encyclical on Christian hope, Spe Salvi. Pope Benedict says in Spe Salvi: The human person “was created for greatness—for God himself; [each of us is] created to be filled by God. But [our] heart is too small for the greatness for which it is destined. It must be stretched.”

Our hearts “must be stretched” beyond mere comfort to be true hearts of disciples of our Lord; to enter eternal life, the “greatness” for which God has created us, to be forever with Jesus our Saviour; to “see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending above the Son of Man.”

Homily for Tuesday, 3 January 2023– Christmas Weekday

Readings of the day: 1 John 2:23-3:6; Psalm 98:1, 3cd-4, 5-6; John 1:29-34

Optional Memorial: The Most Holy Name of Jesus

In these days between Christmas Day and the Baptism of the Lord, which marks the end of the Christmas season, we hear a lot from the Gospel and letters of John at Mass. And there is, in these readings we hear, a pattern. Our readings from John’s Gospel and letters remind us of who God is (or who Jesus is) and who we are.

Neither who Jesus is nor who we are changes. Jesus is, has been, and will always be “the Son of God.” We are, have always been, and will always be “called children of God.” But our perception of who Jesus is and who we are is what changes. Our faith is not static. Could we not say that our faith is a constant process of growing into our realization of those central truths of who we are, “children of God,” and who Jesus is, “the Son of God,” God made flesh?

Over this Christmas season, I have been able to spend some time with my youngest nephew, August or Gus, who is almost a year old. Gus received several articles of clothing from family and loved ones over Christmas. Those of us who have had (or still have) young children or grandchildren will appreciate this: It is very difficult, I find, to know what size of clothing to buy for a baby. Many people bought Gus clothing sized for an eighteen-month-old. Now, most of those eighteen-month-old clothes are a little big for him (although he is already beginning to fit comfortably into some of them). In six months, will he have outgrown some of those outfits already?

This is a similar reality to our Christian faith, sisters and brothers. Who we are and who God is do not change. But faith is an invitation to grow into, and maybe even eventually to outgrow, how we perceive God and how we perceive ourselves before God now.

If the great John the Baptist had to put on the “baby clothes” of faith, before he was baptizing people in the Jordan—and before he baptized Jesus himself—how much truer is this of us? John admits that, not long before he baptized Jesus, he “did not know” Jesus. But, John says, “the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’” Only then is John the Baptist able to testify to Jesus “that this is the Son of God.” Only then is John the Baptist ready for the next size up in faith clothing: “That will be one camel hair onesie, please, men’s size, hand washable in a river.”

And the same is true of us, sisters and brothers. The First Letter of John says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now.” We have always been and will always be God’s children; this will never change. But the same letter goes on to say that “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Yet when God “is revealed,” 1 John says, “we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”

This is quite a bold statement: We will grow in our faith. We will outgrow our present faith clothing. In fact, our faith will grow so much that, sometime between now and when we are in heaven, when God’s presence is revealed to us fully, we will need extra-extra-large, God-sized clothing, because “we will be like” God. We, like John the Baptist, if we are not able to do so already, will be able to point to Jesus and testify that he “is the Son of God.” We will be able to point to other people in our experience who live as Jesus Christ did, who are the saints living among us, and say, “this is a daughter, this is a son of God, beloved of God.”

It looks as though we will need to start looking for the next-size-up outfit!

Homily for Sunday, 1 January 2023– The Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God (Octave of Christmas)

Readings of the day: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:1-2, 4-5, 6-7; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

Happy New Year, sisters and brothers, and a Happy Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God!

For as long as I can remember, I have treasured the blessing God gives to the children of Israel through Moses and Aaron in the Book of Numbers. When I was a deacon and for my first year as a priest, I served at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Rochester, New York. Just inside the front door of our rectory at St. Kateri was this prayer. So, it seems appropriate that I offer us, my sisters and brothers of St. Joseph’s College, the same blessing: “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.”

Sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ, we are still in the season of Christmas. Today is what we call in the Church the Octave Day of Christmas, the eighth day of Christmas, including Christmas Day itself. And the Octave of Christmas, New Year’s Day, is always celebrated in our Church as the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.

The Gospel reading we have heard today from Luke is the continuation of the Gospel reading many of us would have heard if we were at Mass on Christmas Eve. At Christmas Mass at Night, we hear of shepherds who receive a message from “an angel of the Lord” that the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, “has been born to us this day in the city of David,” Bethlehem. And the shepherds are to find this newborn Saviour, of all places, “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

Today those shepherds have arrived at the place where Jesus was born, in a manger in Bethlehem. Luke’s Gospel says that the shepherds “went with haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.” And the shepherds seem to have left in just as much haste as they arrived.

The shepherds who visited Jesus, Mary, and Joseph while Jesus was a newborn in the manger in Bethlehem also seem not to be the type to keep secrets too well (although who could blame them, really; they were the first people on Earth, besides Mary and Joseph, to meet God in the flesh). When the shepherds leave, Luke says, they tell everybody around them “what had been told them about this child.”

The shepherds’ news to the world was news worth proclaiming, that is for sure. It was amazing news, in fact: God, the Saviour of the world, born as a human infant in a manger in Bethlehem, City of David. Luke’s Gospel tells us that “all who heard [this] were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”

But Luke’s Gospel, characteristically so detailed about the events of Jesus’ life, so quickly passes over these amazing events of Jesus’ birth: “The child lying in the manger” tended to by Mary and Joseph, the shepherds arriving and then leaving the manger scene just as quickly, telling everybody they could find about the amazing events they had witnessed, and then returning to their fields, their livelihoods, but “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.”

These first eight days of Christmas have passed by so quickly, have they not? And that is even if we have found time to glorify and praise God for all we “have heard and seen,” all the times and all the people in whom we have encountered the human face of God in a special way. We are doing just that right now, sisters and brothers, the worship of the shepherds, glorifying and praising God for all we “have heard and seen.”

Yet it all happens so quickly. And, on this Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, we hardly hear anything about Mary. Rightly, especially because we are still very much in this Christmas season, our New Testament readings today, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and Luke’s Gospel, all focus on Jesus. We are still celebrating Jesus’ birth. So why, when we are still so focused on celebrating the Nativity of Jesus, do we insert today’s celebration of Mary as Mother of God into this Christmas season?

The doctrinal and historical reasons for celebrating the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on this eighth day of Christmas are many and complicated. The Council of Ephesus in 431 gave Mary the official title of Mother of God, to distinguish from Mother of Christ, a popular title given to Mary at the time. This is to say that Mary is not only the mother of the human Jesus Christ, as if Jesus could not be God and human at the same time after his birth. So to give Mary the name Mother of God is, indirectly, an affirmation that Jesus the Christ, human from his conception in Mary’s womb, is also God.

Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, says that “clearly from the earliest times [of the Church] the Blessed Virgin is honoured under the title of Mother of God.” This is true, yet only since the mid-1700s has a day been set aside specifically to honour the motherhood of Mary, in a way that is not overshadowed by other important events in her life, like the Annunciation or her Assumption, body and soul, into heaven. And only since 1969, under Pope Paul VI (talk about recent!), has the feast day dedicated to the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary been returned to January 1. Some countries, like Portugal, had celebrated the Maternity of Mary in October.

I like to think of this January 1, Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, as the Church’s Mothers’ Day of sorts. This celebration proposes for us Mary as the ultimate of mothers, the one chosen by God to bear his Son in human flesh into the world. And, for the same reason as I pray this on Mothers’ Day on the second Sunday in May, I pray (and I invite us to pray with me) for all mothers, still living on earth and those in heaven. I invite us to pray for all future mothers, would-be mothers who have had difficulty conceiving, mothers who are raising children in poverty and other difficult circumstances, and mothers whose children have died. Mothers of our Church, my sisters in Christ: I dedicate you to Mary, Mother of God and I ask Mary to bless you with joy, peace, and strength in your vocation as mothers.

I have been reflecting on how little Mary is featured in our readings today, how our New Testament readings focus mostly on Jesus. This is appropriate, especially since we are in the midst of the Christmas season. But Luke’s Gospel today includes one short mention of Mary, one I think is very important, particularly on this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Luke says that, as the shepherds arrived and then left the manger scene, and then told the world about Jesus’ birth to everybody’s amazement, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

Mary, ever the humble mother, our Mother and the model and Mother of the Church, gives us the ideal example of silently treasuring and pondering before her newborn Son, the Saviour of the world. I imagine the shepherds and everybody who visited Jesus, Mary, and Joseph during those days in Bethlehem, returning home more at peace than when they arrived at the manger scene. They returned home treasuring and pondering as Mary did, “glorifying and praising God.”

Sisters and brothers we, too, through this celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, ask the Lord for the grace to treasure and ponder, to glorify and praise God by our words, our actions, our worship. May we be the living blessing to the world and everybody we meet—the blessing Jesus communicated to humble shepherds through his mother Mary, and that God gave the people of Israel through Moses and Aaron in the Book of Numbers: “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.”