Today, the 8th day of Christmas, we celebrate the motherhood of Mary. And rightly so – it is something to celebrate. Mary’s motherhood so often comes clothed with the word ‘blessing’ (think of the Hail Mary). And blessing it is for every single one of us. This motherhood surrounded Jesus, clothed him with Mary’s love, and it surrounds and blesses us.
Mary’s motherhood is a mystery of our faith.
By giving birth to Jesus, Mary, daughter of Abraham, fulfilled the deepest vocation of the people she belonged to. She brought the Messiah into the world, she gave flesh to God’s Word. In her and her Son, Israel has become a blessing.
Her motherhood guards the Christmas mystery. She really conceived, really carried, really birthed the Lord. She wasn’t a test-tube. She was physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritual engaged, and her motherhood is the seal and warrant that the Word truly took our flesh and blood, is one of us. If the Lord had a real human mother, he must be really human too. At the same time, her motherhood came from the Holy Spirit and didn’t take away her physical integrity; her virginity remained, a sign that her Son is God as well as man. So, Mary, virgin and mother, guards the full mystery, the full truth, of the Incarnation. And because mothers are mothers of persons, and the person of her Son is divine, we call her the Mother of God: she gave birth to the God who took humanity from her. Babies are often called adorable; this One literally was, and in Mary’s heart the Church’s unflagging adoration of him began. Thanks to her motherhood, we grasp the blessing God’s coming among us in Christ really is.
And her motherhood extends to us. The motherhood of the Church, of which Pope Francis often speaks, is an extension of hers. Except perhaps fleeing into Egypt, she never clutched, never kept, her child to herself. She didn’t hide him in a basket. Even when he was still inside her, she took him to Elizabeth and the child inside her leaped for joy. She showed him to the shepherds and the wise men. She let Simeon take him in his arms. When she pointed out the lack of wine at Cana, the consequence was that her Son for the first time revealed his glory to his disciples. She didn’t smother him; she shared him. And under the Cross, receiving the beloved disciple from her dying son, she was made the mother of all Christ’s brothers and sisters, Mother of the Church, a mother to each of us.
This is why all generations call her blessed, as she predicted. Today’s Collect talks first of her “fruitful virginity”, giving us Jesus, and then asks that we “may experience her intercession”. From her physical motherhood of Jesus flows her spiritual motherhood of us. In how many places, all over the world, Mary makes this warm, wide motherhood felt: even in our Carfin, in Walsingham, Lourdes, La Salette, Banneux, Altoetting, Loreto, Czestochowa, Montserrat, Fatima, Aparecida, in new shrines in Africa and Asia. In everyone of them, and in the life of everyone of us, she repeats what she so beautifully said to St Juan Diego in Guadalupe, Mexico: “Am I not here, who am your mother?” Here motherhood is personal.
On Sunday we began the Jubilee year. We set sail. We began a pilgrimage under the banner of Hope. Mary too made the pilgrimage of hope in her life. Because she shared the hope of Israel, she didn’t spurn the Angel at the Annunciation and put us in her debt for ever. Under the Cross, she “stood” because she hoped in the victory of her Son. And now, “glorified in body and soul in heaven, she shines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord comes, as a sign of sure hope and solace to the pilgrim-ing people of God” – so said Lumen Gentium. “Mother of holy hope” is one of her titles.
Today contains so much: the 8th day of Christmas, a commemoration of the Lord’s circumcision eight days after his birth, his enrolment, as it were, in the people of Israel, and the giving of his name. Today that Name, Jesus, became public. Today another year begins, with all the hopes and fears that can arouse. Today, since Pope St Paul VI declared it in 1968, the Church marks a Day for peace. We ask the Prince of Peace to give his peace, at the prayer of the Queen of peace. Today too we re-entrust our parish and ourselves to our blessed Lady.
Above all, though, today is a day of blessing. In the first Reading, the blessing of Aaron came on us. As Response to the Psalm, we sang: “May God be gracious and bless us”. And the Mass concludes with a three-fold blessing special to today.
So, brothers and sisters, we go into another year, pilgrims of hope. We go blessed by the presence of Mary and the power of her motherly prayer. Amen.
St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 1st January 2025
