Homilies

In my opinion, one of the biggest blessings of being a Catholic is the liturgy. Catholic liturgy is not only a collection of symbolic gestures, the reenactment of a divine drama or a mere aesthetic experience. In the liturgy, two things happen: 1) the mystery of our salvation that is being celebrated is made present again, today; and 2) we are being included, with our present lives and circumstances, in this same mystery. Both things are fundamental. We are celebrating today the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. We heard in the Gospel the narrative of Jesus’ circumcision and the adoration of the shepherds. As Catholics, we believe that these facts helped to form the pathway for our salvation. The way Jesus was born, lived and died has something very important for every Christian, for every human being to learn.

In my homily last week, I mentioned how Zechariah let his fear take the place his faith should have in his heart. He doubted the words of the angel and after that, he became dumb and he entered a long and dark period in his interior life. While John the Baptist grew in Elisabeth’s womb, Christ was silent growing in Zechariah’s heart as well.

“How shall I know this?”, asks Zechariah. I always wondered why Zechariah’s question was punished, while Mary’s question was rewarded – both placed very similar questions. In my opinion, the difference does not lie in the question itself, but in what lies underneath the question itself. Zechariah was a very pious man. He observed all the commandments, he diligently expected the Messiah, and as a priest, he celebrated the liturgy and all the rites full of good zeal and love. But when the angel appeared to him, right in the middle of the liturgy, he realized that God was real, incarnate. God was not simply an idea, a distant object of faith, too far above the clouds to get enmeshed with our mundane, daily life’s issues.

St. Luke is very careful to give time, place, naming the various leaders, both Roman and Jewish, because he wanted to situate what follows in actual history. This event really took place; John, son of Zecheriah and Elizabeth, was the herald preparing the way of the Lord, his very cousin “the Lamb of God.” John fully lived his vocation to his martyrdom by calling people to repentance, still today calling us; he was filled with the inspired words of the prophet Isaiah and on fire as the Lord’s herald.

“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you”. In the Gospel this morning the angel Gabriel greets Mary full of grace almost as if that were her last name: Mary Full-of-grace. And she is in fact filled with the grace of God, more than any other human being. What the angel said is truer of Mary than of any other creature: “You have found favor with God”

“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men”. Jesus always calls his disciples – each one of us. With some, this calling is very explicit. Most monks and nuns have a story about their calling, that moment in their lives when everything changed forever. For some, it was a very contemplative, silent, crystal-clear moment when we know that God exists and our life makes sense in Him. For others, this calling came as a turmoil, an upheaval, when everything turned upside down for a long time, and when the dust subsided – we were changed. And for many, maybe for most, this calling seems silent, never coming.

According to the Roman Breviary this feast commemorates the dedication of the Church of St. Mary built in Jerusalem near the site of the temple. With Christians of the East, the Latin Church also recalls on this day the tradition according to which Mary, as a small child, was presented to the Lord by her parents in the Temple.

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away”. As the liturgical year draws to a close, the liturgy invites us to reflect on the things that pass away and the things that remain in our lives. It is not exactly a pleasant topic: reflecting on the end of everything. On the end of the things we love, the people we love, and ultimately on our own end.