December 23, 2011
The Christian Journey
Mary gives birth to God’s son; we partake in the divine nature
BY FATHER JIM SAUER
For their Advent Reconciliation Services the elementary school children attending St. Matthew Church in Mount Vernon reflected on the shepherd who left the 99 sheep in the desert to look for the one lost sheep. The question posed to each student was “If you were the shepherd, what would you have done?” About 75 percent of the children said they would have searched for the lost sheep!
Their responses were “Because I would feel sorry for the sheep,” “I would worry about the sheep getting hurt,” “The group of 99 could take care of themselves,” or “Maybe another shepherd in the area could watch them.” They’re too young to be concerned about the economics of sheep-herding with the possibility of ending up with no sheep, even the 99 which could have been mauled by wolves, fallen over a cliff, or stolen by others.
No shepherd would ever leave 99 sheep to search for one lost sheep. He would sacrifice the one dumb sheep for the sake of the 99 he still had! That’s just the point Jesus is making to the Pharisees who condemn Jesus for eating with sinners — God’s ways are different than the way we people act. God never gives up on anyone! God goes to the nth degree and then beyond to bring the worst person back to himself.
God’s unimaginable loving mercy has become visible in the gift of His eternal Son whose birth we celebrate at Christmas. St. John expresses this mystery so beautifully, “God so loved the world that God gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16-17). God affirms in the most unmistakable way his love for the human family by becoming one of us.
On the eighth day of Christmas, Jan. 1, we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, who accepted God’s invitation to become the mother of the long-awaited Savior of the Jewish people. This feast of Mary is the oldest recorded feast in the Roman Church dating back to 600 A.D. The earliest murals found in the Roman catacombs depict Mary holding the infant Jesus dating from 150 A.D.
In celebrating Mary’s motherhood, we acknowledge her servanthood as she proclaims in the Magnificat “God has looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid.” Mary humbly recognizes that she deserves no credit for being the Mother of the Savior. Her motherhood was God’s gift to her, “The Almighty has done great things for me.” As the Mother of God she was preserved free of sin from the first moment of her conception and exalted to heaven at the end of her life. Because she was closer to her son than any other person, we seek the help of her prayers.
The Fathers of the early Church wrote so often, “by the incarnation we are made sons and daughters of God; we are ‘divinized’ or ‘deified,’ sharing even now the divine nature” (see 2 Peter 1:4). The Eastern Church sings of this mystery in their Vespers: “O wondrous exchange! The creator of the human race, taking to himself our human nature, was born of the Virgin; he appeared among us as a man without human father and has generously bestowed on us his divine nature.”
The Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God — as do all feasts of Mary — always points to Christ. Hopefully we have a better sense of Pope Paul VI’s instruction that Advent just might be the “Marian Season” of the Church year as we prepare for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.