Solemnity of the Mother of God
St. Pius X Parish, Fort Lauderdale
January 1, 2025
A Mother’s Love
Moms, you know, never stop being moms. My mom lived to be 103, and until the end of her long life she loved me and my brothers with a mother’s love. We often received our best advice at her kitchen table. She could tell if something was bothering us. She might not have known the ins and outs of our daily work, but she thought about us, prayed for us, and pretty much had the big picture.
What is true of a good mom like my own is even truer of the Blessed Mother. St. Luke, ever the artist, paints a picture that helps us see how Mary brought Jesus into the world “with love beyond all telling”. We enter into the stable where Jesus was born. We see Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in a manger. We glimpse Mary’s maternal love as she ponders in her heart the mysterious events surrounding the birth of her Son.
But Mary’s vocation as mother just beginning. Soon, she and Joseph would present Jesus in the Temple where Simeon foretold that a sword of sorrow would pierce her heart. Last Sunday we felt Mary and Joseph’s anxiety as they searched for Jesus after he went missing in the caravan returning from Passover in Jerusalem. After that episode, Mary tends to fade into the background, only surfacing now and again, as when she urges Jesus to work his first miracle at the wedding feast of Cana or when she shows up where Jesus is teaching, asking to see him. Even if references to Mary during Jesus’ public life are few and far between, we get the idea that she was a constant presence in his life and that she, more than anyone else, exemplified his teaching.
Mary’s Maternal Vocation Expands at the Foot of the Cross
Mary’s Motherhood emerges full force toward the end of the Gospels. She is there for Jesus, she is there for her Son, in the hour of suffering & death, along with the beloved Apostle John . . . standing at the foot of the Cross. Simeon’s prediction came true. A sword of sorrow pierced her heart. But even in her sorrow, her maternal vocation expands. Jesus says to John, “Behold your mother”, and to Mary “behold your son.” In that moment, Mary became, not only the mother of her divine Son, but also the mother of all those who would follow Christ as members of his Body, the Church. So it is that we find Mary praying with the Apostles at Pentecost and gathered with them as they celebrated the Eucharist.
Mary’s Maternal Vocation Continues
Mary’s maternal vocation also extends to you and me. She is Mother of the Church and that means she is our spiritual mother, yours and mine. She loves us and prays for us and understands us more than we know. Continually, she leads us to Jesus. Continually, she urges us to follow Jesus and bear witness to him. Her great desire is that we pass safely through this life to life eternal.
If we want to experience Mary’s maternal love, then let us pray the Rosary. As we do so, let us ponder the mysteries of Jesus life, just as Mary did. Mary, for her part, will open our hearts to the truth and beauty of all her divine Son did to bring about our salvation.
On this New Year’s Day, let us give thanks to God for so great a Mother, and let ask her to intercede for us, so that with hearts full of joy and hope we will indeed follow her divine Son ever more closely in the year ahead. God bless you and keep you always in his love!