1st January 2015: Num. 6:22-7; Gal. 4:4-7; Lk. 2:16-21
Welcome
my brothers and sisters to today's celebration of the Feast of Mary, the
Mother of God. I take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year.
I pray that the Lord Jesus fills your lives during the year 2015 with an
abundance of blessings that will
enrich your spiritual lives so you may continue to shine as brilliant lights in the world.
enrich your spiritual lives so you may continue to shine as brilliant lights in the world.
Today's
Feast of "Mary, Mother of God" is very appropriate to start a new
year. This celebration echoes that the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is the Mother of God, is also our Heavenly Mother.
Today, I
would like to retrace the origin of this very special Feast. We base our faith
in this dogma on the words of Elizabeth who was the cousin of Mary. When the
Blessed Virgin Mary visited Elizabeth after the angel had appeared to her and
told her that she would be the mother of Jesus, Elizabeth said, "And why
has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?" [Lk. 1:43]
Through Elizabeth who was full of the Holy Spirit, it was acclaimed that Mary
had been chosen to be the Mother of God.
In 431
A.D. the Council of Ephesus affirmed that Mary was truly the Mother of God
because "according to the flesh" she gave birth to Jesus, who was
truly God from the first moment of His conception. Twenty years later, in 451
A.D. at the Council of Chalcedon, it was affirmed that the Motherhood of Mary
was a truthful dogma and an official doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church. The
Feast of the Mother of God affirms that Mary was the mother of Jesus who was
both God and human. The Holy Scriptures teaches us through the Gospel of John
that Jesus was both God and human. "The Word became flesh and lived among
us." [Jn. 1:14]
Mary's
Motherhood began when the eternal God entered human history. And it continued
to be one of her unconditional acceptance. She chose to be the mother of God,
with her unconditional faith, submission and hope. When the Angel announced
the news that she had been chosen to be the mother of God,
her response was: “Behold, I am the hand maid of the Lord. Let it be done
to me according to your word."
She was well aware of the consequences of being found with a baby
before marriage. She had witnessed the punishment given for
infidelity. Still when the word of God made demands on her she did not think
about the worries that "tomorrow" might bring. This is a great lesson
for us. We, often, live in the worries of the future. Our life is engulfed
by the regrets of the past and the unknown worries of the future. After all
today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday. As we are setting
foot to the New Year, our mother stands beside us, encouraging us to be
optimistic in life.
There was once a farmer who devised a
competition between his dog and his rabbit. He made a hole in one of his
biggest fields, and hid a carrot and a bone in it. He wanted to see which
animal would find them first.
The rabbit was very cheerful and optimistic, and
he threw himself into looking for the carrot, digging here and there, totally
convinced that he would find it. But the dog was pessimistic, and after
sniffing around for a bit, he lay down on the ground and began to complain how
difficult it was to find one bone in such a big field.
The rabbit dug for hours, and with every new
hole the dog complained even more about how difficult this was, even for the
rabbit. The rabbit, on the other hand, thought that each hole dug was one hole
less that needed digging. When there was no place in the whole field left to dig,
the rabbit dug a tunnel to right under where the dog had been lying all that
time. There he found the carrot and the bone.
Due to his
great instinct, the dog had already found the right place at the very beginning
but due to his laziness and pessimism he had lost it. When the Angel announced
God's plan for her, When the shepherds visited the New born babe, when the wise
men came with gifts, when innocent children were slaughtered in Jerusalem,
when they had to flee from their home country, When Jesus performed miracles,
when Jesus was rejected by the crowd Mary was neither overcome with extreme joy
nor did she give up her optimism. This is the first lesson our mother gives us.
Work hard today and everything will be in place. George Bernard Shaw wrote: "I
want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I
live. I rejoice in life for its own sake."
Now the
challenges facing the world are the greatest for a generation; humanity stands
helpless. Many fear the governments are in the grip of forces so powerful that
nothing can be done. Our hope is often shattered by natural calamities,
manmade disasters, war between countries and social problems. In the past, when
such problems gripped the society, the governments were powerful enough to support,
and offer a solution. But, today most the governments have lost hope, they are
looking for a solution; they are depending on one another and the public for a
creative suggestion. Hence, our role is all the more important. Our optimism
should be able to provide a solution for the contemporary problems. It
should start from the individual, and spread to the family, to our community,
to our society and to the nation. Mary's life and example should motivate us to
take up this mission in the New Year.
Make this
new year special by doing something different, feeding a hungry man,
helping your suffering neighbour by giving some warm clothes for her
children, visiting a lonely neighbour and with such little acts of
kindness.
May Jesus
bless our efforts through the intercession of Mary, Mother of God.
Satish