Homily
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
1 January 2015
Christ the King Topeka
Daily Readings
Welcome back to Mass, Catholics! Good morning and Happy New Year! Well, at least some of you are here. January 1st is a neglected Holy Day, but that's a shame, since it's such a beautiful feast and a critical one. For we celebrate more than asking God's blessing on the passage of time and the dawn of a New Year. We celebrate the depth of the Christmas mystery, of eternity entering into time. We celebrating the great mixing of humanity and divinity, and the elevated dignity that our human nature takes on because of the incarnation. As St. Paul says so beautifully, because of the Incarnation, we are no longer slaves but sons, and have an incomparable worth as sons and daughters of God!
This is cause for celebration! We actually go to Mass more often in the first days of Christmas than we do Easter. At least some Catholics do! Thanks for being here to celebrate the fullness of the Christmas feasts - Christmas, Holy Family, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and this weekend, Epiphany! It is a great privilege and responsibility that Catholics have to carry forward the fullness of the Christian tradition in history. Thanks for being here to carry it together, joyfully! A continued Merry Christmas to everyone!
Today is the critical 8th day of Christmas. The number eight is critical. It is the day of the new creation, a creation much better than the original creation of 7 days. There is nothing wrong with our celebrating the optimism of New Year's as well, but we must remember that for us Catholics, our New Year started on the first Sunday of Advent. It is then that we resolved to be made different by being ready for the Lord's coming. The Lord's coming brings much more than the turning of clocks or the dropping of a ball in Times Square! The secular new year is of course a day of great hope, marked in Catholicism by the reading of the Holy Father's World Day of Prayer for Peace Message. We pray that through Christ, the Prince of Peace, the violence and disease and poverty and injustice that rip out hope for too many may be ended. We pray that we will be instruments of that peace, especially in our own families.
Yet the dawn of a new year is small compared to our responsibility to continue to say Merry Christmas! The hope of Christmas is much greater than the optimism of New Year's, for the new creation begun in the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and continued through Her subsequent yes, is much more profound than marking the world getting a year older. Today in our celebration of Christmas we draw especially close to Mary, knowing that it is impossible for us to have a better Christmas than her; in fact, entrusting ourselves to Her is the path to a perfect Christmas. Nobody teaches us how to prepare a place for Christ to be born, deep within us, nor shows us what changes within us when we see His holy face, than Mary, the first and best Christian. She has her own day in Christmas, and we remember that there would be no Christmas without the yes of Mary.
Today we celebrate her specifically under the title of Theotokos - God bearer. The official title of today's celebration is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. We should never become desensitized to such a radical claim. In today's Feast we say much more than Mary was the mother of Jesus, and responsible for his human nature. No, we say much more! We call her Theotokos - Mother of God - mother not just of the human nature of Jesus but of his whole person. God himself, and all of God, entrusts Himself to the yes of a human person. We say something mind-boggling about Mary, that she is the mother of a God who is a Father but who has no Father. We celebrate on the 8th day of Christmas the sign of a virgin Mother through whom the Father who first created everything out of nothing in seven days, chose to recreate the world!
All of God entrusted himself to a human mother. God could not give any more honor to motherhood than that! So today, January 1st, is Catholic Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day! Just as each of us entered this world through the intercession of a mother, so too God chose a mother for us in the order of redemption. God was never more dependent upon Mary than at Christmas, so at Christmas, especially today, is a most fruitful time for us to entrust ourselves to Mary, the spiritual mother God has chosen for us!
Mary, the mother of God, given as our mother by Jesus on his cross, help us have a perfect Christmas by giving us your heart as we receive Him at Christ's Mass.
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
1 January 2015
Christ the King Topeka
Daily Readings
Welcome back to Mass, Catholics! Good morning and Happy New Year! Well, at least some of you are here. January 1st is a neglected Holy Day, but that's a shame, since it's such a beautiful feast and a critical one. For we celebrate more than asking God's blessing on the passage of time and the dawn of a New Year. We celebrate the depth of the Christmas mystery, of eternity entering into time. We celebrating the great mixing of humanity and divinity, and the elevated dignity that our human nature takes on because of the incarnation. As St. Paul says so beautifully, because of the Incarnation, we are no longer slaves but sons, and have an incomparable worth as sons and daughters of God!This is cause for celebration! We actually go to Mass more often in the first days of Christmas than we do Easter. At least some Catholics do! Thanks for being here to celebrate the fullness of the Christmas feasts - Christmas, Holy Family, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and this weekend, Epiphany! It is a great privilege and responsibility that Catholics have to carry forward the fullness of the Christian tradition in history. Thanks for being here to carry it together, joyfully! A continued Merry Christmas to everyone!
Today is the critical 8th day of Christmas. The number eight is critical. It is the day of the new creation, a creation much better than the original creation of 7 days. There is nothing wrong with our celebrating the optimism of New Year's as well, but we must remember that for us Catholics, our New Year started on the first Sunday of Advent. It is then that we resolved to be made different by being ready for the Lord's coming. The Lord's coming brings much more than the turning of clocks or the dropping of a ball in Times Square! The secular new year is of course a day of great hope, marked in Catholicism by the reading of the Holy Father's World Day of Prayer for Peace Message. We pray that through Christ, the Prince of Peace, the violence and disease and poverty and injustice that rip out hope for too many may be ended. We pray that we will be instruments of that peace, especially in our own families. Yet the dawn of a new year is small compared to our responsibility to continue to say Merry Christmas! The hope of Christmas is much greater than the optimism of New Year's, for the new creation begun in the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and continued through Her subsequent yes, is much more profound than marking the world getting a year older. Today in our celebration of Christmas we draw especially close to Mary, knowing that it is impossible for us to have a better Christmas than her; in fact, entrusting ourselves to Her is the path to a perfect Christmas. Nobody teaches us how to prepare a place for Christ to be born, deep within us, nor shows us what changes within us when we see His holy face, than Mary, the first and best Christian. She has her own day in Christmas, and we remember that there would be no Christmas without the yes of Mary.Today we celebrate her specifically under the title of Theotokos - God bearer. The official title of today's celebration is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. We should never become desensitized to such a radical claim. In today's Feast we say much more than Mary was the mother of Jesus, and responsible for his human nature. No, we say much more! We call her Theotokos - Mother of God - mother not just of the human nature of Jesus but of his whole person. God himself, and all of God, entrusts Himself to the yes of a human person. We say something mind-boggling about Mary, that she is the mother of a God who is a Father but who has no Father. We celebrate on the 8th day of Christmas the sign of a virgin Mother through whom the Father who first created everything out of nothing in seven days, chose to recreate the world!
All of God entrusted himself to a human mother. God could not give any more honor to motherhood than that! So today, January 1st, is Catholic Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day! Just as each of us entered this world through the intercession of a mother, so too God chose a mother for us in the order of redemption. God was never more dependent upon Mary than at Christmas, so at Christmas, especially today, is a most fruitful time for us to entrust ourselves to Mary, the spiritual mother God has chosen for us!
Mary, the mother of God, given as our mother by Jesus on his cross, help us have a perfect Christmas by giving us your heart as we receive Him at Christ's Mass.
1 comment:
"best Christmas is hers" Loved finding this so I could read your words Father Mitchel. It was meant for me to make it today. Jag evidently had a light left on and so no go. and then I tried the BMW which had enough power to open tailgate and get this loaded up...tried to start and not enough ump to start...Great way to start the new year! Hopefully yours is much better!
Tried to post on there and couldn't...
Mary K
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