1 January 2025
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
Num 6:22-27; Gal 4:4-7; Lk 2:16-21
Homily
In the Gospel we have just read, when the shepherds arrive in Bethlehem, they discover ‘Mary and Joseph with the newborn child lying in the manger’. Mary is mentioned first, in her dignity as Mother. This is why today we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Over the centuries, Christians have attributed many titles to Mary, with varying degrees of sobriety and depth. The title Mother of God, given to her since the Council of Ephesus in the fourth century, is one of the oldest. However, in the Gospels, she is simply called the ‘Mother of Jesus’, and even, in today's Gospel, the mother of a little child who does not yet have a name, since it is only eight days later that he is given the name Jesus.
The four Gospels tell us about the life of Jesus from the beginning of his public life. However, Luke and John both added a Prologue to their Gospels. These two Prologues are very different from each other, but they also have much in common. John's Prologue (which we read on Christmas Day) begins in a very solemn way with the words: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God... etc.’. Now, the ‘Word’ is also at the heart of the first two chapters of Luke's Gospel, which make up its Prologue, and especially at the heart of the passage we have just heard. The difference is that John uses the Greek word logos, borrowed from Greek philosophy, whereas Luke uses another, more common Greek word. He uses the word rèma, a word that still means ‘word’ in Greek, even though several modern translations often translate it as ‘event’, because the word ‘word’ in Semitic languages is sometimes used to designate a word that has been fulfilled, and therefore an event. (In fact, when it is translated as ‘event’, it is an interpretation, no doubt a legitimate one, but not a translation...).
But let's go back to Christmas night. There are shepherds in the mountains, feeding their flocks. An angel appeared and spoke to them. He announced a great joy: a Saviour had been born to them in the city of David. He is ‘their’ Saviour. The angel says: ‘A Saviour is born to you’. A sign is given to them: they will find a newborn baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. As soon as this word was spoken, an army of angels appeared, singing the praises of God.
How did the shepherds react to this word? They talked amongst themselves (always the word...). They say: ‘Let's go to Bethlehem to see what has happened’ -- literally translated: ‘Let's go and see this word’. Luke is the only one to identify ‘Bethlehem’ with the ‘city of David’. There is probably a symbolic link between the name ‘Bethlehem’, which means ‘house of bread’, and the manger in which Mary laid Jesus, symbolically offering him to us as food.
The shepherds came to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph with the newborn baby lying in a manger. It was a newborn baby who did not yet have a name. They spoke up and recounted what the angel had told them. Just as they themselves had been seized with great fear when the angel arrived on Christmas night, so the people to whom they relate these words are seized with great astonishment. And just as the multitude of angels had come to the mountains to sing the praises of God, the shepherds went away praising God for everything they had heard and seen.
Mary's attitude towards the Word was different. When the angel told her that she would give birth to the Son of God, she replied: ‘Let it be done to me according to your word’. That word had become flesh in her. Now that she has laid this Word made flesh in a manger, and hears all these words about her son, what does she do? She says nothing. She remains silent, and, Luke tells us, she holds all these words in her heart and meditates on them.
Among the members of the Church, that is, among all those who have recognised Jesus as their Saviour, the most common vocation is that which imitates the attitude of the shepherds who, as soon as they have discovered the Word, go out into the squares to praise and glorify God. There is also the vocation - called ‘contemplative’ - of those who are called to imitate Mary, holding and meditating unceasingly in their hearts the Word they have received.
But we all have a common vocation, which is to be sons and daughters of God. The first-born Son became one of us so that we might all become children of God. Saint Paul speaks of this in his Letter to the Galatians, where he tells us that God sent us his Son, who became one of us, born of a woman - Mary - so that we might become sons in the beloved Son. And just as the angels gave a sign to the shepherds, Paul gives us a sign of this marvellous reality. The sign is also a Word. It is the Word of the Spirit of Jesus in us. This Spirit of Jesus in us cries out unceasingly to his Father, in a cry that is both his and ours: ‘Father’ (Abba).
And eight days after the birth of Jesus, once again a word is heard: this word is the name that is pronounced over him, the name that is given to him, and which had been destined for him before his conception in the womb of Mary.
Dear brothers and sisters, trusting in the Word of God the Father, who has called us to be his children; trusting also in the proper name that he has given to each and every one of us; attentive to the voice of the Spirit within us that says ‘Abba’, -- let us do as Mary did, who pondered all these words in her heart, and let us also do as the shepherds did, glorifying and praising the wonders of God in our lives and in the lives of his People.
Armand VEILLEUX