Homily for Saturday, 1 January 2022– The Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

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.

Homily for Wednesday, 1 January 2020– Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

Octave Day of Christmas

Readings of the day: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:2-3, 4, 5, 6, 8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

This homily was given at St. Joseph’s College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

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 with which the LORD asks Aaron, through Moses, to bless the people of Israel in the Book of Numbers, in the reading we have heard today, is maybe one of the most recognizable blessings in the Jewish or Christian traditions; in our Bible. But what is peace? With what kind of peace was Aaron to bless his people as he and Moses led them through the desert back to their homeland, Israel?

The Hebrew word for “peace” in this Aaronic or “priestly blessing” of Numbers is, I am sure, a word many of us have heard before: Shalom. But is shalom not one of those notoriously difficult words from an ancient language to translate into a current language like English? Shalom may mean “peace,” in a sense, though, that is much richer than the absence of a dispute or of war. It may mean anything from wishing somebody wholeness or prosperity to a simple hello or even goodbye.

“The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you shalom.” This blessing of Aaron has several echoes throughout our Scriptures and our Mass. In John’s Gospel, at the Last Supper, Jesus blesses his disciples with a prayer for them reminiscent of Aaron’s prayer for the people of Israel in Numbers: “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you.” And then, in the same Gospel, the risen Jesus greets the disciples three different times: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

In a few moments here, we will echo these words of Jesus, which are in turn an echo of God’s voice through Aaron to his people: “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you… Shalom be with you.” In this way, we will exchange a sign of peace just before we receive communion, shalom given for us in the form of bread and wine. And then we will be sent forth from here at the end of this celebration: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”… to be shalom to our world in profound need of our peace as a people of God.

Is it not appropriate, then, that each year, on January 1, New Year’s Day, in addition to this liturgical celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, as Church we also celebrate this day as the World Day of Peace? We have, I think, a lot to celebrate each year on this World Day of Peace, New Year’s Day, Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Our world becomes more peaceful year by year: Fewer wars; more respect for freedom of thought, freedom of religious faith, and other basic human rights and freedoms; more governments and forms of government that uphold these human rights.

Still, our world is far from perfectly at peace, much less at shalom that is so much more than the absence of conflict; shalom that is peace only possible for us through God. Parts of our world still remain mired in war; still send record numbers of people fleeing from violence and abuse, in search of peace. Households, families, marriages still experience brokenness; shalom still eludes us at this most foundational level of any healthy human society.

Yet still we (rightly) celebrate as we pray for shalom; for peace. And we connect this celebration of and prayer for peace with a celebration of Mary as Mother of God. So what might Mary, Mother of God, have to do with peace, in our world, among and within nations, or within households and families? Let me suggest that our celebration of this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, has a lot to do with peace; I will go so far as to say that a healthy Christian devotion to Mary is essential for our peace; for shalom.

Our Gospel today, from Luke, shows us this essential connection between the Blessed Virgin Mary and peace; shalom. When the shepherds first arrive at the scene of our Lord’s birth, we might imagine their excitement and the excitement and amazement of everybody present with them. Luke’s Gospel says in fact that, as the shepherds “made known what had been told them about this child… all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”

All this excitement, activity, and even amazement is a good thing, especially this time of year, is it not? Yet (and maybe we can all relate to what I am about to say) is this Christmastime not one of the more exhausting times of the year? Amid all the activity, we need time to rest; to pray; to celebrate with joy, yet still to be at peace. So, after Luke describes the excited joy of the shepherds, everybody’s amazement “at what the shepherds” had to say “about this child,” Jesus, Luke turns our attention toward Mary. Luke says that “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

My sisters and brothers, let me suggest that these two verbs, “treasured” and “pondered,” are most essential to the Gospel we have just heard. They are essential for our peace, in its fullest sense of shalom. Amid the noise, the excitement, the activity, the words of the shepherds, her own probable exhaustion at having just brought a child into the world, of all the people in our Gospel account today, Mary is the most “at peace.” And she teaches us something central to our own being “at peace”: Treasuring and pondering.

But to treasure and ponder as Mary does is not to hold onto the joy of this celebration of the Lord’s birth as if it is ours to keep to ourselves in a selfish way. The joy of this celebration has been given to us by God through Mary, a young woman God chose and preserved from sin in order to bring God’s own Son, Jesus, into our world. Because this joy; this gift of God’s Son through Mary that we treasure and ponder, has been given to us, God calls us now to hand on this gift of shalom enveloped in our human flesh to the world around us. And how might we treasure and ponder while handing on this gift we have received?

Again, may we look to Mary as an example of treasuring and pondering while handing on. From the moment Mary conceived Jesus in her womb, through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and Mary’s own assumption into heaven, body and soul, Mary allowed the peace, the shalom of God to settle into her very depths. Shalom became the foundation of who Mary was, treasuring and pondering, such that then this shalom was able to flow from her. God calls us now to the same willingness to treasure and ponder, to allow shalom to take on our human flesh and become the essence of who we are, not only the historical event of the birth of a child in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.

Every time our prayerful celebration here, our treasuring and pondering before the altar of the Lord, allows and strengthens us to act in even small ways of kindness, mercy, and justice toward one another, shalom incarnate becomes a little more who we are and flows from us as it did from Mary into the world.

Let me go back (briefly but to some time ago) in history, to the Council of Ephesus of 431. There, at Ephesus, our Church’s bishops first encouraged all Christians to pray through Mary under the title of Theotokos, “God-bearer” or, as we Roman Catholics usually refer to Mary, “Mother of God.” Outside the place where the bishops of Ephesus assembled, the faithful chanted, as if as a prayer for the unity of the bishops and the Church, which was anything but assured in 431, “Mother of God”…

Here, now, on this first day of 2020, may we join in this prayer of Ephesus: “Mother of God,” Mother and Queen of Peace, through your Son Jesus Christ, give us, our Church and our world the gift of shalom. May we treasure and ponder, allow to become incarnate in our depths, and then hand on this gift as you did. Shalom chaverim, as our Hebrew-speaking sisters and brothers might pray: “Let us go forth in peace” into this New Year to bear to the world, enveloped in our human flesh, the peace we have received, pondered, treasured, and that we celebrate today.

Homily for Monday, 1 January 2018– Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

Octave Day of Christmas

Readings of the day: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

This homily was given at Our Lady of the Valley and St. James Church, Coldstream and Vernon, BC, Canada.

How many names and devotional titles can we think of by which we, as Catholics, celebrate Mary? We often give her, as in the name of today’s celebration, two names, “blessed” and “virgin.” When we speak of Mary as “the Blessed Virgin,” we combine two different Gospel accounts of Mary around the conception, birth, and infancy of Jesus: Matthew, who applies Isaiah’s prophecy to Mary, “A virgin shall be with child,” and Luke, in whose Gospel Mary’s relative, Elizabeth, first calls Mary “blessed.”

The second part of the title of today’s celebration of Mary, “Mother of God,” is a simplified form of a complicated Greek title given Mary at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, theotokos or “God-bearer.” The main purpose of the bishops at Ephesus was to affirm the truth of the two natures of Christ, both divine and human. Mary, then, was said not to have borne Jesus in his human nature but also in his divine nature in her womb; Mary is not only “Christ-bearer” but “God-bearer.”

And we have a long list of less-complicated names for Mary than theotokos. Anybody here whose name is Mary or a variation of Mary: I do not want to be too gloomy, but your name derives from myrrh, the burial spice brought by the magi in Matthew’s Gospel alongside gold and incense. The name Mary— Mariam, “myrrh-bearer”— reminds us of the suffering Mary would endure alongside her Son Jesus through his passion and death. No saint has as many titles or is called upon for as many causes as Mary. Right here [in the Vernon area], Mary is the namesake of our church, Our Lady of the Valley. When I was a teenager, my family moved to a parish called Our Lady of Perpetual Help, outside of Edmonton, Alberta. Pope Francis has helped to popularize the devotion to Our Lady, Untier of Knots, which was not a very common devotion until Francis became pope. Whole countries and regions, like the United States under Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception or the American continents under Our Lady of Guadalupe, are dedicated or, we say, consecrated to Mary.

Mary is called upon in times of illness. She has been called upon to defend nations in times of conflict. She is the patron of many a religious order, of refugees and migrants, of the homeless, the dying, of widows, and of those in situations of unplanned or crisis pregnancies. From the “Black Madonnas” of Częstochowa in Poland and Montserrat in Spain to her appearance to humble shepherd children of Fátima in Portugal; from Lourdes in France to atop a pillar in Spain; from Kazan in Russia to Australia’s Mary, Help of Christians, to Notre-Dame-du-Cap in Trois Rivières, Quebec, here in Canada, and beyond, the number of devotions to Mary and the causes associated with her are countless.

We also often call Mary “Queen of Heaven.” Two glorious mysteries of the Rosary, Mary’s Assumption and heavenly Crowning, recall our belief that Mary has been taken up body and soul into heaven, and reigns there as the greatest of all the saints. When we end our Rosary, and at other times, we pray, “Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope”… and, during the Easter season, we might pray the “Regina coeli”: “Queen of heaven, rejoice, for the Son you merited to bear has risen as he said, alleluia”!

But what does it mean for us to recognize Mary as “queen”? I have to admit some personal fascination with royalty. Lately, as I have been staying with family over this Christmas season, I have caught a few episodes of the Netflix series “The Crown.” This series is about the rise to the throne and reign of Queen Elizabeth II. In several scenes of “The Crown,” Queen Elizabeth is sought for her government and diplomatic skill. She is consulted by Prime Ministers in dealing with sometimes tense events in the world early in her reign. “The Crown” portrays Elizabeth as a competent, strong yet calm queen. And yet I am even more drawn to how frequently “The Crown” portrays Elizabeth as a devoted and even tender wife to Prince Philip and mother to their children.

To a much greater extent than of Queen Elizabeth, indeed perfectly so, the same is true of Mary. She is Queen of Heaven, and yet also Mother. Mary is Mother of God; she is Mother of Christ; she is our Mother. Mary’s queenship and motherhood are inseparable. When we pray, “Hail, Holy Queen,” we add immediately, “Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.” Our Regina coeli acknowledges Mary as “Queen of Heaven” (these are the prayer’s first words), and then immediately as the joyous one who bore her, and God’s, now-risen Son. Our Advent and Christmas hymn, Alma Redemptoris Mater, again acknowledges the inseparable queenship and motherhood of Mary: “Loving mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again. To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator, yet remained a virgin after as before. You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners.”

St. Thérèse of Lisieux was known for her reverence and yet familial relationship with Mary. St. Thérèse knew Mary intimately as both queen and mother; as queen because Mary is our Mother. Some of the last words St. Thérèse spoke were these: “We know well that the Blessed Virgin is Queen of heaven and earth. But, I believe, she is more Mother than Queen, [because she] greatly increases the splendor of” her children.

As our Mother, the Mother of the Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary does not keep the splendor of queenship to herself. Instead, she guides us tenderly toward and reflects upon us the same splendor of heaven. Through Mary, Mother and Queen, God blesses us in the same way he once asked Moses to bless his people: “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.” Through Mary, our Queen because she is our Mother; Mother of Christ, Mother of God, St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, we are made sons and daughters of the same God. “And if son [and daughter], then” we are also heirs (do we hear the royal language here?) to the salvation to which Mary is leading us.

Luke’s Gospel, we hear today, says that, when the shepherds arrived at the manger in Bethlehem where the newborn Jesus lay and “made known what had been told them about this child,” Mary “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Treasuring and pondering: These are the actions of a devoted, loving mother. As Mary once treasured and pondered the shepherds’ words about her Son Jesus, we can be assured, sisters and brothers, that Mary still ponders and still treasures us in her heart, the heart of a mother.

And so today we celebrate many things, including the beginning of a new year, no less. But, as we ring in this New Year, we celebrate first and foremost our Church’s Mother’s Day. We celebrate Mary, the one who ponders and treasures; the one who blesses and leads us toward heaven, toward God and God’s Son, Mary’s Son, Jesus Christ. Today we celebrate this joyful feast of Mary, greatest among the saints; woman of countless names, titles, and devotions; woman of our age and for all ages; Queen because she is first Mother. She, the Blessed Virgin Mary of Nazareth, is Mother of Christ; Mother of God; Mother and model of the Church; our Mother, for the salvation and greater splendor of her children.

Homily for Tuesday, 27 June 2017– Ferial

Tuesday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of St. Cyril of Alexandria

Readings of the day: Genesis 13:2, 5-18; Psalm 15:2-3a, 3bc-4ab, 5; Matthew 7:6, 12-14

“Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” Obedience to this rule, which is often called “the Golden Rule,” is easy enough, right? “This is the Law and the Prophets,” Jesus says to his disciples; to us in Matthew’s Gospel. In other words, this “Golden Rule” is the minimum standard of justice. It presumes that we would not normally want harm ourselves, and so, if we would not normally want to harm themselves, then we should not want to harm another person, either.

But how often do we give into temptation to retaliate against another person who wrongs us? How often do we give into indirect means of retaliation: Gossip or passive-aggression? Have we ever held a grudge? In individual instances, these may not be very serious faults, yet their harmful effects can accumulate if we act in these ways toward others often enough. Even so, though, one instance of gossip, of passive-aggressiveness, or of holding a grudge against another, to say little about acts of outright aggressiveness, are breaches of Jesus’ “Golden Rule”: “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” They are offenses against justice. I wonder how many of our sins have little to do with the so-called “hot-button” or “culture war” issues of our time and more to do with how we act toward one another from day to day, especially when another person wrongs us, frustrates us, or when we simply disagree with another person on an issue that is important enough to us. The ease with which the “Golden Rule” may be broken under sometimes small temptations may be the “broad” road leading “to destruction” of which Jesus speaks. Narrow is the road of justice and kindness, especially when others behave unjustly or unkindly toward us.

Jesus’ Golden rule is a call to a minimum standard of justice. This call to justice is also present in the Book of Genesis, in the story of the parting between Abram and Lot we hear today. “The land could not support” both Abram and Lot together, so they decide to separate from each other. But Abram and Lot consider each other’s good; they are concerned with justice. Both settle where the land is fertile and where they will be able to support families and gain a livelihood comfortably: Abram “in the land of Canaan” and Lot “among the cities of the plain.”

Most importantly, by separating from each other but still ensuring each other’s good, Abram and Lot act as God would act. Abram and Lot would have been perfectly in obedience with the “Golden Rule” that Jesus would give long after the time of Abram and Lot. They, as God calls us to be, are bearers of God’s presence to one another. As our Psalm response says today, the one who “does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.”

Today we also celebrate the memory of St. Cyril of Alexandria, who is known especially as a major promoter at the Council of Ephesus in 431 of the Greek title for Mary, our Blessed Mother, of Theotokos, or “God-bearer.” This title is not only a name for Mary; we are all called to be “God-bearers” by acting with justice toward one another as we would want others to bear the God of justice and kindness to us.