Mary The Mother Of God – January 1st 2014

Celebrating The Feast of Mary, Mother of God

Archbishop Joseph Harris

Gospel Lk 2:16-21

The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them. When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Homily

This evening we begin the celebration of New Year’s Day. In T&T we say that what is done on New Year’s day will be done throughout the year. May every day then, even as we go about our regular secular activities, be these on the sporting field or the political arena, or in business, be a day of worship.

The Gospel reading for this day is better understood if we first of all read the first lesson from the book of Numbers. “The LORD said to Moses: “Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: This is how you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them: 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! So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

The ancient Jewish refugees, returning from exile to a desolate homeland, convinced that their exile had been in punishment for their sins, longed for a sign of divine favor and reassurance. Their priests assured them that in the temple the face of God would shine upon them.

To people convinced that God was a vengeful God who punished people for their sins, to be assured that God would smile upon them must have brought a new understanding of God and of his relationship with us human beings. In many ways we today, still believe in a vengeful God. Religion has so often taught us that God punishes. We tell our children that God will punish them and for many of us the basic relationship that we have with God is coloured by the fear of punishment. We need to know that “The LORD lets his face shine upon us and is gracious to us, that The LORD looks upon us kindly and gives us peace!” The relationship which God wants to have with us is essentially a relationship of Justice, a relationship in which we give to God what is his due and God gives to us what is our due. The reading from the Book of Numbers which we have just heard reminds us therefore of what God wants for us; ““The LORD said to Moses: “Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: This is how you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them: 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! So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

And so the Gospel reading for today tells us the story of the Shepherds, rough unlettered men who were considered and almost certainly considered themselves as sinners. It is to them that the angel appears, giving them the great news that for them and indeed for all humanity a saviour had been born. God had again “let his face shine upon human beings and had done this to give us his peace”

The Christmas story then is meant to give us a new appreciation of the relationship which God desires to have with us, so that like the shepherds “we may make known the message that had been told us about this child.”

If the relationship which God wants to have with us is a relationship of Justice, we are called to respond to God by giving God his due. The question then for each one of us is; how do I give to God what is due to God? The Book of Exodus tells us that the Israelites were set free so that they could go out into the desert to worship God. This is God’s due. We have a just relationship with God when we worship God. The prophets however remind us that true worship of God consists not simply in cultic activities, like going to Mass and the sacraments or Eucharistic adoration. True worship consists in taking care of the widow and the orphan, the most vulnerable in the society and those who find themselves on the margins. It would seem therefore that even though we have so much for which to thank almighty God in this nation of ours, as a nation our worship of God is not what it should be. The slaughter of our innocents, the abuse which seems to be spreading like wildfire, (we see it in the bullying in our schools etc.) the discrimination practiced because of gender, or ethnicity, or illness all speak to us of the lack of authentic worship in our land. This is a situation which must be reversed, if the relationship of Justice which we are called to have with God is to be evident in our land, for a relationship of Justice with God is only realized in a relationship of Justice with other human beings.

We approach this New Year with various dispositions, from the confident to the desperate. We do not expect literally to see the shining face of God. But the lesson of the Christmas crib can so fill us with a renewed appreciation of God’s favour, that our faces can express the welcome, acceptance, mercy, reassurance, and love to the others around us that God would like to express to them.

All of us weak human beings need models or heroes whom we can imitate and whose lives tell us that it is possible for us to aspire to and to live the ideal. The lives of all the saints model for us what true worship really is. We can think of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, of St. Damian of Moloki and of our own Archbishop Anthony Pantin. These are three examples of men and women who offered true worship to God because they let.

their faces express the welcome, acceptance, mercy, reassurance, and love to the most vulnerable around them that God wanted expressed. The supreme model however is Blessed Mary ever Virgin, the Mother of God, whose life was an expression of all that God wanted from human beings. Her response to the message brought by the angel; “Let what you have said be done to me” is the expression of a commitment to offer true worship to God for her entire existence. May all of us seek to make such a commitment our own.

As we thank God for letting his face shine on us in the past year, let us remember to seek forgiveness for not letting our faces shine on the most vulnerable in our land. Let us thank God for the people who in their words, actions and faces gave us a sense of God’s graciousness to us. Let us also in this New Year that we begin commit ourselves to helping others come to an awareness of God’s graciousness to them through our gracious actions to, with, and for them.

Have a Happy and blessed New Year!

Prayer

All powerful and ever-loving God, we thank You for the past year, we thank You for your graciousness to us, for having let your face shine upon us in spite of our lack of graciousness towards You and each other. We ask forgiveness for the many crimes committed against the human person, for conception to death. These crimes are all signs of our lack of graciousness, of our refusal to let our faces shine on others especially the most vulnerable in our midst. As we begin the New Year 2014, we ask that Emmanuel, God-with-us, walk this land of ours, bringing the grace of conversion to all, so that we may begin to make your graciousness experienced by all, especially the most vulnerable amongst us. We ask this through the intercession of Mary, our mother and Jesus, your Son. Amen