Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Mary

 Lectionary: 442  

Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, listens to my words, and acts on them.
That one is like a man building a house,
who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built.

When two of the Baptist disciples asked the Lord, "Where do you live?" he replied, "Come and see." 

What he had to show them could not be fully revealed with words, as useful as they are. He would not give them a street address, or even the name of a village. They had to come and see, and be invited into a home built on the rock of faith. 

Because the "mother of Jesus" appears in the next story, I suppose that the Lord led these gentlemen to the home where he lived with her. They would come to know the Most Holy Name of Mary. 

That name, along with the Holy Name of Jesus, are founded on the rock of our faith. We pray with as much confidence in her name as we do in that of Jesus. The latter appears prominently in Luke's Acts of the Apostles and in the epistles of the New Testament; but in later Christian devotion the name of Mary would soon be honored throughout the world; especially after the Council of Ephesus in 431AD, when Mary of Galilee was recognized as Theotokos, the Mother of God.

Anyone who knows the Lord as he must be known  -- a human being who lived and died like any man, whose identity is both "Son of Man" and "Son of God," -- must have a natural, healthy curiosity about his family, and especially about his Mother. What kind of woman would she be? Who could be worthy of such an honor? What did she believe; how did she believe; and how did she suffer for the privilege of being the Mother of the Messiah? 

But that curiosity leads us into the abyss of mystery, which is unfathomable to the human mind, but available to a courageous and generous heart. 

While visiting Saint Jude Catholic Church in south Indianapolis last year, I was struck by the positioning of the Crucifix and his Blessed Mother in the sanctuary. I saw a man looking, perhaps for help in his desperate need, to his helpless mother. I remembered the recent story of a man strangled by police, and his dying whimper as he invoked his mother. Crushed beneath the idolatrous, insane wickedness of corrupt religion, government, and society they remained faithful to one another, and faithful before their God. 

Because God heard their pleas, ransomed Him from death, and restored the Lord to his Blessed Mother, we can and do believe in God. He still hears their prayer as one prayer. When we invoke their names, they pray with one voice, one mind, and one heart for you and me.