Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist, who was scandalized
by Christ’s relative “no-show” that failed to visibly confirm his preaching about the Messiah of a
visible Christendom) proclaimed concerning our Lady, “Blessed is she who
believed.” Mary became the mother of God because of her faith. She believed
more than Abraham who was not ultimately called to kill his Son, Isaac. She was called to say “Yes” to Christ's death and witness
it. Abraham's
faith generated the Old Testament. Mary's faith generated the New.
And now we are called to have the faith of Mary and become “mothers” of Christ by
engendering Him in us in the world. Now. The Gospel text of Luke 11, 27 reads
that the woman, overcome by the appearance of Christ, cries out: “Blessed is
the womb that bore thee and the beasts that gave thee suck.” The Lord answers: “Yeah,
rather, blessed is she who hears the Word of God and does it.” The meaning is
that blood relation to the Lord does not constitute motherhood of Christ but
obedience to the Word of God.
The import of the above is: If we hear the Word of God and do it – live the obedience
that is faith – we will become mothers of Christ as our Lady did. The gospel
text reads: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? Stretching out his hand to
his disciples: “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will
of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Augustine
comments: Did the Virgin Mary, who believed
by faith and conceived by faith, who was the chosen one from whom our Savior
was born among men, who was created by Christ before Christ was created in her
– did she not do the will of the Father? Indeed the blessed Mary certainly did
the Father’s will, and so it was for her
a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been his mother, and
she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood. Hers was the
happiness of first bearing in her womb him whom she would obey as her master”…
“Now having said that all of you are brothers
of Christ, shall I not dare to call you his mother? Much less would I dare to
deny his own words. Tell me how Mary became the mother of Christ, if it was not
by giving birth to the members of Christ? You, to whom I am speaking, are the
members of Christ. Of whom were you born? ‘Of Mother Church,’ I hear the reply
of your hearts. You became sons of this mother at your baptism; you came to
birth then as members of Christ. Now you in your turn must draw to the font of
baptism as many as you possibly can. You became sons when you were born there
yourselves, and now by bringing others to birth in the same way, you have it in
your power to become the mothers of Christ.”
The great
point of the feast is: Mary is not blessed because she is the mother of God.
Rather, she is the mother of God because she made the gift of herself (which is
faith). And since we are called to make that self-gift, we are also called to
be the mother of God and engender the God-man in us – and this in the exercise
of ordinary work in the secular world.
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