Other feast days celebrate Mary in the liturgical year, but today we
begin our year by venerating her as Mother of God. Her Motherhood is the
heart and reason for all our attention to and claims on Mary through the
centuries.
We need this woman throughout the year! Just think of all
the honor and prayers offered to Mary through the two millennia of Christian
faith, the images, the titles, the pious practices, the special doctrinal pronouncements
in the last two centuries in Roman Catholicism that she is the Immaculate
Conception and was Assumed into Heaven.
Sinless (but otherwise entirely human like us) and Queen of Heaven, she
hears our prayers; though she does not judge or save or heal herself, she prays
for us. She is Advocate, Mediator,
Guide, Role Model, Comforter, and always a real Woman, and even Sister and
Friend to us, throughout our lives, and—as the “Hail Mary” says—“at the hour of
our death.”
We need this woman! A few
weeks ago, in conversation about TIME’s selection of Pope Francis as “Person of
the Year,” a young woman of feminist leanings remarked, “We should have a WOMAN
as head of the church ABOVE the Pope.” We
have her! Mary, the Mother of God is above the Pope in the Church! Further, our human nature needs a womanly
figure to honor and pray to. I heard Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York say that the first place Pope Francis visited after his election was to a shrine of our Blessed Mother, as have the previous 3 popes, to ask for her help and guidance in their pontificates.
As Mary’s child is obviously different from any other hero in
history and literature, so she transcends as well as fulfills our need for
Mother, Mediator, or Queen – and also for a real woman who is personal,
intimate Mother, guide, model, and friend.
Now celebrating the Mother of the Word, I notice the words of our
readings for today, and particularly that “Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart.” I
want to follow her example, reflecting on the Gospel narrative, St. Paul’s
teaching, the blessing that the Lord taught Moses, and the prayer sung in the
Psalm. (
And I notice, as if new in this New Year, the exact words of the
most obvious “Hail Mary” prayer. I’m
noticing that first we “hail” her then we praise her, stating the obvious: that
she is “blessed” and so is her child.
Then we ask her to pray for us sinners – and not only in this moment of
reciting the prayer, but at the time of our death. Death -- the usually not noticed part of
life! We need this woman now, each day,
and to the certain end of “now.”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners, NOW” – in all of
2014 – “and at the hour of our death.”
Happy New Year!
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