Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

 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. As proof that you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir, through God.

Saint Paul solved what might have been a sticky problem with his adoption. Clearly, gentiles were flooding into the Church which had been founded by a Jewish Messiah, and promoted by his Jewish disciples. If Jesus intended to gather non-Jews into the Kingdom of God, he had said little to his disciples about it. 

And that was fine with Saint Paul, who thought of himself as the "apostle to the gentiles" but there was potential for serious misunderstanding. The gentile converts might suppose that Jesus intended to save all people willy-nilly, regardless of their tribe, race, or nation.

And sadly, that is what happened. Later generations of Christians would call it supersessionism, meaning that the Christian church had superseded the Jewish people and they had no further role in the salvation of the world. The heretical doctrine takes three forms, as R. Kendall Soulen has shown in his recent book Irrevocable: The Name of God and the Unity of the Christian Bible: 

1. Israel-forgetfulness -- Christians can forget the Jews because their covenant with God doesn't concern us; 
2. Economic supersessionism -- God prepared the Jewish people with his grace to produce the world's messiah and, having done so, they disappear from history like eggshells once a bird has hatched; or 
3. Punitive supersessionism -- God has punished the Jewish people for their well-documented sins and annulled the covenant he made with them. Its extreme form is antisemitism. 

Following soon after the revelation of the Shoah when several states in Europe, without objections from the United States and other nations, murdered approximately six million Jewish men, women, and children, the Second Vatican Council addressed the Church's antisemitic and anti-Jewish attitudes. In their statement, Nostra Aetate, the bishops wrote:

The Church keeps ever in mind the words of the Apostle about his [Saint Paul's] kinsmen: "theirs is the sonship and the glory and the covenants and the law and the worship and the promises; theirs are the fathers and from them is the Christ according to the flesh" (Rom. 9:4-5), the Son of the Virgin Mary. She also recalls that the Apostles, the Church's main-stay and pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ's Gospel to the world, sprang from the Jewish people.

As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor did the Jews in large number, accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading. Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues-such is the witness of the Apostle. In company with the Prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and "serve him shoulder to shoulder" (Soph. 3:9).

Saint Paul solved the problem with the word adoption. Those Christians who are not the blood descendants of Abraham share nonetheless in the promise of salvation by their adoption through faith in Jesus and baptism into his Church. He also used the word grafted, as gentiles are grafted into the Jewish people like olive branches onto a tree. Their fruit may be somewhat different but they are genuine nonetheless. 

On this feast of Mary the Mother of God, the word adoption might remind Christians of every sort that any accusation, insult, or assault against Jewish people is a grave offense against our Mother Mary. It is intolerable and should be instantly repudiated. 

We might smile indulgently and endure the contempt of anti-Christians, especially since we know we're guilty of something although it might not resemble what they say. But we cannot remain silent about insults to our beloved Theotokos. She readily, willingly adopted us -- a sinful, misguided, alien people -- in obedience to her Son's dying wish. 

Our affection for the Blessed Virgin Mary is truly Catholic. It knows no bounds and never hesitates to obey her last word to us, "Do whatever he tells you!"