Luke 2:16-21
When I was a boy I
enjoyed reading the Tarzan stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan
had been raised by apes, you see. Not only was he capable of
interacting with apes and other animals in the jungle, but he learned
how to read and speak English, and could pass as an upper class
member of British society.
Reality, however, is
different. There are a few well documented cases of children who,
although not raised by apes or wolves, were isolated from a very
early age, usually by neglectful or psychopathic parents. And when
these children were rescued, there was no hope of ever getting them
to become useful members of society. Language could not be acquired;
social skills were lacking; even the ability to walk and use table
implements could barely be managed.
We celebrate the feast of
Mary the Mother of God this weekend. The early Church spent a lot of
time thinking about the nature of Jesus. Was he a good man who was
sort of adopted by God? Was he some sort of spirit who put on a
human body? Was he some kind of mix between God and man? After
three centuries of debate and thought, it was concluded that Jesus
was one person, who had two natures, that of God and that of man. He
was truly God and truly human, just as human as you and I. That
naturally led to the conclusion that Mary had to be the Mother of
God. If Jesus was one person, Mary could not be the mother of the
human nature and not the God nature. That would split the person of
Jesus.
Well, that's all well and
good and we've lived with that idea all our lives. Even our
Protestant friends when they think about it, agree that Mary is the
mother of God. But they say, “so what?” God could have used any
woman to give birth to Jesus. A womb is a womb. And sometimes we
Catholics are like that as well. On the one hand we have Mary
carrying Jesus through nine months of pregnancy, then delivering him,
and then sort of fading into the background. On the other hand we
have a sort of cult about Mary, the Virgin Mother, who interecedes
for us, who appears at different places, who always turns our
attention towards her Son. In this second situation we argue for her
privilege, the fact that she was conceived without sin, that she
remained a virgin all her life, despite giving birth; that she
remained sinless all her life, that she was assumed body and soul
into heaven at the time of her death, sort of as a preview of coming
attractions for the rest of us. Because she was selected by God to
bear his Son, she enjoys the highest place in heaven, higher than the
angels, higher than the greatest saints – but seemingly, through no
effort on her part. What did she do to deserve this?
But there is something we
always seem to forget. Jesus was a newborn baby. Jesus was like you
and I at that time, sensitive to hunger and pain and pleasure;
unaware of a world outside of his immediate experience. There was a
time when Jesus knew nothing of emotional attachment; he learned that
because Mary loved him out of his infantile isolation. There was a
time when Jesus knew nothing of trust and security; but learned to
trust from his mother. Jesus was sensitive to the feelings and
thoughts of other people; you learn that from your mother. Being
kind and loving towards others is not something you just pick up; you
see that behavior directed at you by your mother, and you imitate it.
Jesus surrounded himself with his disciples in a sort of a family,
and the Church he founded resembles a family. Jesus learned about
family relationships from his mother. Now granted, he learned from
Saint Joseph as well. But if a little child scrapes his knee and can
run to his father or his mother, guess who he runs to? For a baby,
the father is the one who protects the family from the outside world,
but the mother is the source of emotional fulfillment, the source of
love.
So Mary is not just a
vessel that God created to give birth to his Son. Mary is not that
creature of divine privilege who enjoys her position because she was
conceived without sin and as a result spent a sinless life. She is
not where she is because her Son is God.
No, if we really believe
Jesus was a human being, then those earliest days in his life,those
crucial days which formed his personality, his ability to love
others, his trust in the fatherhood of God, and indeed all those
things that made him the person he was, were largely because of
Mary's motherhood. And when Jesus tells Philip “when you have seen
me, you have seen the Father” the fact that Philip can see the
Father in Jesus is because of Mary.
Mary is the mother of
God. She is the one most responsible for instilling in her son all
those things that make him human – even language itself, because
you can only learn a “mother tongue” during a certain period in
your early childhood. Of all the women that ever existed, Mary is
the only one given the capabilities to actualize God, to bring out
God, in Jesus the God-man. And she did, and that's the greatest work
any person could ever do.
So you see, God put
himself in the hands of Mary and put all his trust in her motherhood,
and she came through. Jesus is the result.
So on this feast we can
ask Mary to use her unsurpassable skills as a mother to draw
something of God out of us, to form God in us, and to help us channel
divine love to all those we are supposed to love.
