Octave of Christmas, Mary Mother of God (01 Jan 2012)
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
What No Angel Can Do
The festival of the Incarnation—from Christmas Day through the Baptism of the Lord—is never enough time: never enough time to soak in the astonishing wonder of the divine become human, heaven on earth, God assuming our human nature. Mary’s motherhood of God began our redemption in Messiah Jesus born of her.
It happened when the fullness of time had come, as St. Paul put it. Indeed, when heaven joined earth time became more than full, it flooded with God. Earth inexorably—a person at a time—joined heaven: Mary’s affirmative response to Gabriel’s message from God; the action-response of the shepherds to the angelic Gloria; and the acceptance of Jesus as prophet and messiah of God by individuals down to us here and now. Those action-responses to the divine desire to restore and reunite humans with God means that time is full of the divine life of the Trinity, who decided in their eternity that the Second Person should also become a human being in order to save the human race.1
In one sense time passes: 2011 seeps into 2012. In another sense time is full, and our reckoning it into hours, days, months and years is artificial. We were baptized to live in the more real sense of time as flooded with God. Mary mothered God into human history. Thus, we live between Jesus’ first arrival as human and his glorious return as risen Lord. Today we humans, not angels, are his ambassadors. Our vocation to announce God joining us in our broken, incomplete and at times erratic living begins to satisfy humanity’s deepest hungers for peaceful restoration, wholeness and steady living. As Jesus’ ambassadors we extend the message of the angels and do it in ways no angel can: we proclaim our Messiah Jesus with our flesh and blood; we proclaim him by how we choose, speak and act.
Because flesh and blood clothes our spirits, the angel-spirits pray for us and cheer us on to do our part to make this fullness of time more humane as God in Jesus by their Spirit make it divine. How might we do that? Not so long ago, my mother’s pastor offered seven-ups in his homily to begin a new year. They were:
- Wake up;
- Dress up (with a smile);
- Shut up (from gossip and unhelpful remarks);
- Look up (for there is much beyond ourselves);
- Stand up (to engage the world);
- Reach up (as a babe reaches for mother; and to that which God invites me to become); &
- Lift up (ourselves and all things to be transformed by God’s creative and redeeming love).
Those ways make good Christian ambassadors. They help us appreciate better God’s invitation of light, glory, life and mission. We’ve all moved in those directions in our lives. We have also moved away from them.
We slip from attention to inattention; from bright faces to dull, smile-less expressions; from holding our tongues—or at least guarding our words—to cutting others and our world unnecessarily; from gazing beyond to moping within; from a posture of relationship with others to groveling, being enslaved by our limitations and sinfulness; from trying to inhabit the mysteries beyond our reach to fearing that everything and everyone might harm me; and from placing ourselves into God’s heart and hands to acting as if each of us were the center of the universe.
Those seven-ups
- Wake up;
- Dress up (with a smile);
- Shut up (from gossip and unhelpful remarks);
- Look up (for there is much beyond ourselves);
- Stand up (to engage the world);
- Reach up (as a babe reaches for mother; and to that which God invites me to become); &
- Lift up (ourselves and all things to be transformed by God’s creative and redeeming love).
help us grow more humane. By becoming more humane we welcome our Messiah Jesus to shape us by his Spirit as his ambassadors for each other and our world. To be Jesus’ spirited ambassadors challenges us to look forward to 2012 and to choose: what will I do to renew my relationship with Jesus and to bring it more alive one day at a time?
A year ends, another begins. Will you, will I begin my life anew in and through Jesus’ Spirit?
- Desire to live anew.
- Each day give Jesus 15 minutes of your attention.
- Ask Mary to present you to her son.
- Allow yourself silence, stillness of spirit and wonder to do that. Silence, stillness of spirit and wonder begin to make us his ambassadors. They allow us to give ourselves more to Jesus, to his gospel, to others, to work, to family and other relationships, to relaxation.
Silence, stillness of spirit and wonder welcome God’s creative and redeeming love. God’s creative and redeeming love help us stand tall, look beyond ourselves and speak and act with Christian wisdom and love. As we act with Christian wisdom and love, we and others grow less to mark time and more to live each moment as flooded with God’s life given through Jesus by their Spirit. That is our way to glory in the beginnings of [God’s] grace, so one day we may rejoice in its completion in us and our world.2
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- As St. Ignatius of Loyola expressed it in his Spiritual Exercises, 102.
- Prayer Over the Offerings, Mass of the Solemnity of Mary, Holy Mother of God, Roman Missal.
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Richard Crashaw, described them in a poem describing the end of life. Sport—“physical play”—as author, B.G. Kelly, maintains can make and keep them friends.
