1 January 2016 - mother of god

[ Today's Readings ]

Let us go in haste to Bethlehem and find Mary and Joseph and the infant lying in the manger.

Today is the feast of Mary, the Mother of God. We look to her son in the manger and we see the one who is the Son of God and Son of man. We see an infant, obviously human, and yet recognize the one who is in the beginning with God, who is God himself. We see the one who sustains all of creation by his powerful word and yet sleeps in the manger under his mother's watchful gaze. He is an undivided whole, both God and man. And Mary's motherhood is therefore of both. She is the mother not just of the human nature of Jesus, but of all of him. It is not that she creates God, obviously.  But she is the Theotokos, the God-bearer, who is the portal through which he enters the world.

Because God chooses to take flesh in the womb of a virgin, human nature and divine nature are inseparably joined together. Because they are thus joined we who are not divine are allowed to share the same Sonship of Jesus. His Divine Father becomes our Father just as a human mother becomes the mother of a Divine Son.

As proof that you are sons, 

God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, 

crying out, “Abba, Father!”

This is the Spirit who comes upon Mary, the power of the most high who overshadows her. He unites the human and the divine in her. He wants to do so in us as well.

We are right to be amazed at what God is doing. The best thing to do is to respond with contemplation and thanksgiving just as Mary does.

And Mary kept all these things,

reflecting on them in her heart.

Once we have seen this miracle we must not be silent.

Then the shepherds returned,

glorifying and praising God

for all they had heard and seen, 

just as it had been told to them.

This, more than all else, is how we can be a blessing to the world. This, more than anything else can make 2016 great. We see the full meaning of the blessing given to Moses.

The LORD bless you and keep you!

The LORD let his face shine upon

you, and be gracious to you!

The LORD look upon you kindly and

give you peace!

His blessings are not merely earthly and temporal. He shares his own divine nature with us. Nothing else can matter as much as this because only the divine endures forever. May he bless us in his Mercy.

Let us thank Mary as she watches over the manger for saying yes to God. Let us thank her for being the focal point of the union of human and divine. Let us come to her so that her Spirit-powered motherhood can unite the human and divine in us as well.