Talking to middle-aged man on Friday - asked as everyone does at his time of year what he was doing for Christmas. He said that he was going to spend Christmas Day at home quietly because his mother died a couple of months ago and the sense of loss is just beginning to hit home. Those of us whose mothers have already died will have been through that same experience. There is something utterly special and irreplaceable about the relationship we have with the person who gave us life, from whom, literally, we established our human identity. And, of course, what we owe to our mothers is not just biological. They are the ones who have formed us emotionally, who have helped to create our values – it is from them that, instinctively, we have our first understandings of the nature of love.
As Christians, we believe that when the time came for God’s own Son to share our humanity, to become one flesh with us, he, too, experienced that unique bond, which a child has with its mother and vice versa. And that that relationship is moral as well as biological, emotional as well as physical.
On this 4th Sunday in Advent the focus changes. The first three Sundays have very much been taken up with the witness of John the Baptist, with his cry to prepare a way for the coming of the Lord – today, the arrival of the Messiah is imminent, and we hear St Luke’s account of how that plan, conceived in the Father’s heart, and worked out through so many generations, comes to its fruition in the angel's annunciation to Mary and the Visitation to her cousin, Elizabeth. St Bernard reflects on Mary’s freedom to choose in a famous passage. “Answer, O Virgin”, he says, “answer the angel speedily; rather, through the angel, answer your Lord. Speak the word, and receive the Word; offer what is yours, and conceive what is of God; give what is temporal, & embrace what is eternal”.
For 2,000 years, Mary has been a source of fascination to believer and non-believer alike. This woman who stands at the centre point of history, about whom so little is known. The Second Eve, the Mother of Jesus who is God incarnate. Painters, writers, poets, musicians, sculptors – all have tried to capture something of what one of them has called “our tainted nature’s solitary boast”. “Blessed”, indeed “is she how believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled”.
Perhaps, in our own times, we have deeper insights to offer as our understanding of the human psyche explains that we are, to a very large extent, for good or ill, what our parents have made us. If we want to know Mary, all we need to do is reflect on the humanity of her Son as revealed in the Gospels. Everything he is and everything he does, and says, reveals the lessons first learned at his Mother’s knee, the ethics imbibed in the home at Nazareth.
As Catholic Christians we are heirs to a long tradition of not just respecting Mary for what she did, but of loving her for what she is. We see in that symbolic handing over of Mary to St John at the Cross, a gesture that embraces all humanity. It is the will of God that Mary’s maternal care for her Son should be extended to every one of his brothers and sisters. In a profoundly spiritual sense, she is our Mother too, and she watches over us, as she watched over Jesus, with such gentleness and such devotion, with so much sensitivity and so much concern.
Some non-Catholics worry lest the love given to the Mother in some way compromises the uniqueness of love which belongs to Jesus. But that, surely, is to fail to understand how a family works. The love given to one member overflows to the rest – each is loveable in their own way – the love that a mother feels for her husband, and vice versa, the love that their children have for their parents and for one another – none of this can be measured out, it just is – a part of the given-ness of who we are & how we function.
In four days it will be Christmas Eve and, once again, we will wonder with Mary at the God made Man, the fruit of her own body. She is central to this mystery of love, which we call the Incarnation. The Mother holding her Child – that fundamental human and Christian icon. Let us ask her to stand close to us and our families through these coming days. Let us ask her to give us fresh insight into the humanity of the Child she was privileged to nurture.
Mary the Dawn – but Christ the Perfect Day
Mary the Gate – but Christ the heavenly Way
Mary the Temple – but Christ the Temple’s Lord
Mary the Shrine – but Christ the God adored
Mary the Beacon – but Christ the haven's rest
Mary the Mirror – but Christ the Vision Blest.
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