Mary the Mother of God



Click on the collect

Lectionary #18

When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

In his encyclical Redemptoris Mater, Saint John Paul II points to these words as historically the first direct reference to Mary. Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians was written well before the gospels. Although the verse seems to have little interest in Mary’s personality, it does point to her crucial role: Jesus could not be our Savior, Messiah and Lord unless he was born of a woman, born under the law. Jesus could not have just appeared among us like an alien visitor from heaven, another dimension or outer space. To be our savior he must be human like us.

Given that premise and knowing our God as we do, we can assume that this woman gave her full consent to the conception and birth of the child. God does not use, exploit or deceive anyone and especially not his beloved ones. So when the Gospel of Luke appears almost forty years later, we’re not surprised to learn of the Angel Gabriel’s appearance in Mary’s home, nor of her ready consent.

It almost goes without saying that she too was born under, and lived under, the law. In fact she is the heir of an ancient tradition of obedience to God’s law. We have come to know her as the finest flower of her race. After centuries of prayerful, patient fidelity the Jewish people have produced a woman full of grace.

All her life she prayed with her people that the Lord would send his messiah; and God could not resist her prayers. Because she is filled with grace – the very spouse of the Holy Spirit – she knows the mind of God and can ask only for what God wants to give.

Mary is that first Christain who is ready, alert, eager and open to God’s purposes. When she asks God answers as surely as an earth which is positively charged must send a bolt of lightning into the negatively receptive storm cloud. They are meant for each other.

I also hear in today’s gospel that urgent command of the Lord to ponder all these things. If 2016 is both different and better than 2015 it will be because we recognized, pondered and welcomed God in our daily life.

Your blessed and fruitful virginity is like the bush, 

flaming yet unburned

which Moses saw on Sinai.
Pray for us, Mother of God.