Wednesday, December 21, 2011

01/01/2012 – Homily - Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God – Luke 2:16-21


         Today, we celebrate the wonderful solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God on the first day of the new year of 2012.  And it is quite a treat for us to celebrate this special day on a Sunday, which doesn’t happen very often in our Church’s liturgical calendar.    In today's Gospel, we hear how the shepherds visit Mary and Jesus in the manger, how Mary pondered all that she heard from the shepherds in her heart. Through this reading, we see a very human side of Mary.  However, as we celebrate Mary in a special way today, we might ask ourselves a question about something we as Catholics might take for granted:  Why do we call Mary the “Mother of God”? Even though this title does not come directly from the Scriptures, it was commonly used to describe Mary long before it was defined as a dogma of our Catholic faith at the Council of Ephesus in the year 431. 
         There was considerable debate in the early Church about the nature of Christ, about whether he was both fully human and fully divine.  At the center of this discussion was a title ascribed to Mary, because since the early third century, some followers of Jesus gave Mary the title of “Theotokos,” or God-bearer. I was very fortunate for having had an entire course in the seminary on the Virgin Mary, taught by Father Marcello Neri, a Sacred Heart priest from Italy.  He emphasized again and again that any title given to Mary is not given to just glorify her or to tell us only something about her, but Mary and her titles ultimately point us to Jesus, her Son, and tell us something about him or about our redemption & salvation that comes through him. 
         So, why is it important for us to call Mary “the Mother of God,” rather than to simply refer to her as the Mother of Jesus?  In an important way, the Church insists on the title “Mother of God” for Mary so as to not to divide or separate Jesus’ divinity from his humanity; the Church does not want to give the impression that divinity & humanity are two separate & independent parts of Jesus.  By referring to Mary as the Mother of God, the Church confirms that Jesus is one person that is fully human and fully divine. 
         Just as we refuse to separate the humanity of Jesus from his divinity, we lay the foundation that we refuse to separate Jesus from the body of the Church, for as the Church, we are truly the Body of Christ.  The divine work of Jesus is an integral and essential part of the human work of the Church; the two cannot be separated.  Jesus shares his divine life with the members of his Church, as he also shares in our human lives.  In the Church, Jesus lives and works, as we as members of the Church live & work in Jesus.  As we give Mary the title “Mother of God,” it helps us to understand the mystery that we are proclaiming when we say that as the Church we are the body of Christ. And as we receive the Eucharist today, as the priest & the Eucharistic ministers distribute the host and pronounce that this is the Body of Christ, we not only declare the host as the body of Christ, but we also declare that the person receiving the Eucharist is the body of Christ as a member of Christ’s Church.  When we think of it in these terms, what a profound theological statement we make each time we gather around the Lord’s Table to celebrate the Eucharist to receive the Body of Christ as the Body of Christ.
         Mary is the Mother of God, she is our mother, and she is the mother of the Church.   As our mother, as our intercessor, as the first disciple, Mary brings us ever closer to her Son.  As we honor Mary today as the Mother of God, we honor her son, we honor the way God is working in her. 

No comments:

Post a Comment