Fr Jack SJ MD: Homily for the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

Nm 6:22-27

Ps 67

Gal 4:4-7

Lk 2:16-21

The ball dropped in Times Square despite Dick Clark no longer being alive to supervise it. The calendar shows a year that is one digit higher than it was yesterday. By now a few people have written the wrong year on a check. Resolutions announced with great fervor and determination yesterday

have already been broken even though it is not yet noon. Toasts have been drunk and sappy songs have been sung.

It is now Anno Domini 2023

Christmas is over for the secular world. Indeed, for most people it was over

once the gifts were opened. For the Church however, the Christmas Season

continues for twelve more days. Unlike the secular world of Happy Holidays the Church is unwilling to abandon her joy at the coming of the Savior into the world

as quickly as the glitzy gift-wrappings that were ripped off gift boxes and dumped into the trash.

The New Year on the Calendar begins today. The New Year of the Church began on November 27, the First Sunday of Advent. The Church's Holy Season of Christmas--note, it is a HOLY season NOT a holiday season--will continue until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord on January 9, whereupon we will return to Ordinary Time until Lent begins on Wednesday February 22.

With the end of the secular holidays we have the opportunity to bask in the joy of Christmas without the retail dimension or the treacly sentimentality of TV movies that strip all religious associations from Christmas. The tree, the fat guy in the red suit, and the anthropomorphized animals, have been relegated to the closet until next year. Now we have the opportunity as church to contemplate the event that began our ransom from sin and death.

We have the opportunity to contemplate Jesus' incarnation, fully God but also fully man, sharing completely in our human nature. That sharing began in Bethlehem and ended on Calvary, the wood of the manger led directly to the wood of the cross. The Church's prolonged celebration of Christmas gives us the opportunity to look back to the past and forward to the future.

"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!"

The blessing Moses was told to impart on the people is a model of simplicity and profundity. It is a blessing that continued despite the people's attempt to reject it.

It is a blessing they repeatedly forgot whenever it was expedient to do so, whenever they chose to ignore the covenant. But, it was a blessing that God never forgot despite the frequency with which it the people did.

Paul's Letter to the Galatians contains an exquisitely evocative phrase of haiku-like brevity. Indeed, it is shorter than a typical haiku, Just eleven words. A mere dozen syllables. Only one of the words has two syllables. Yet, this simple phrase

could consume days of contemplation.

"When the fullness of time had come God sent His Son."

It is difficult to grasp the meaning of "the fullness of time," particularly in light of yesterday's gospel:

“In principio erat Verbum,

et Verbum erat apud Deum

et Deus erat Verbum”

"In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God

and the Word was God."

With just a little reflection on the meaning of 'the fullness of time' or the meaning of eternity we become inarticulate. We become inarticulate as we struggle to express that which is inexpressible. We can no more explain or comprehend the meaning of God's existence before time than we can comprehend the idea of God transcending all time.

In the coming months of the liturgical year we will encounter many things that,

like Mary, Mother of Jesus, whose solemnity we observe today, we can only hold in our hearts. We can only hold them in our hearts because they are impossible to describe in words.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.

Mater Dei, the Theotokos whom we venerate in a special way. While I was in Slovenia a few years ago, I attended—and photographed—an Eastern Church ecumenical liturgy It included a prayer that perfectly explains the reason for this Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and what it means for the world.

"More honorable than the cherubim

and by far more glorious than the seraphim,

ever a Virgin,

you gave birth to God the Word.

O true Mother of God

we magnify you!"

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Photos are from the ecumenical Roman-Orthodox-Eastern Uniate service.