Mary, the Mother of God, our Mother Too

A 34-year-old mother and her 3-year-old child were rescued by fishermen after three days of drifting at sea. They had been washed away with their house to the sea by a strong current of flood in Misamis Occidental in the eve of Christmas (2022). I saw the news on TV when the mother was interviewed.  I was moved by her courage to survive and her determination to save her 3-year-old child. The raft they used broke many times, so she desperately tried to look for other wood to cling on to. She took care of her child while adrift at the open sea for three days. She would look around for any edible item floating near her. They fed on fruits and fish.  When her child was thirsty she managed to reach for a coconut. I wonder how she was able to break it so that her child could drink from it. Well, a mother always finds a way to take care of the needs of her child even in the most desperate of times.

When our mother is around we feel safe. Even in difficult times, we still can have our sense of security because we know that our mother is there taking care of us. Our mother always finds a way… because she cares. She would do whatever it takes for our sake.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary as Mother of God at the beginning of the New Year. Mary is the “Mother of God” because she is the mother of Jesus, the God-Man. You see, God himself needed a Mother! And how much more so do we!  Mary is our mother too. Jesus himself gave her to us, from the cross: “Behold your mother!” (Jn 19:27). He said this to the beloved disciple and to every disciple.

We begin our journey this New Year with a confidence that we are accompanied by our Mother.  No matter what happens, no matter what lies ahead, we feel safe; we walk unafraid because we have a Mother who cares. Life nowadays is becoming harder for most of us. Rising inflation coupled by frequent calamities! And there seems to be no clear plan how to get out of this as a people. We can easily feel orphaned, left to fend for ourselves. Yet today’s celebration invites us not to lose heart but to trust that we are guided and accompanied by a Mother who cares.

Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother too, can guide and accompany us in our difficult journey by strengthening our faith in God’s goodness despite the many and varied forms of suffering we experience each day. In today’s gospel reading (Lk 2:16-21), Mary illustrates for us the right attitude in facing difficult realities in life. Mary has to face her own difficulties but with the strength of a mature faith.  In the words of Pope Francis, Mary had to endure “the scandal of the manger.” What is this? This refers to the unexpected event of the Son of the Most High being born in the lowliness of a manger.  Mary had received the message of an angel, who spoke to her solemnly about the throne of David: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David” (Lk 1:31-32). How come that Mary ended up giving birth to the Son of God in a crib for animals? How can Mary reconcile the glory of the Most High and the humility of a stable? As a mother, Mary would have wanted her child to be in a much better place. She could have complained. But we see in the Gospel reading that Mary remains silent and pensive:  Mary “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19).

Mary teaches us to face our own troubling situations with this attitude: to keep and to ponder. When what we expect and maybe ardently prayed for turns out to be far from the reality, Mary our Mother invites us to profit from this discord and to grow more in faith by way of keeping and pondering. (The following beautiful explanation is taken from the words of Pope Francis).

First, Mary “keeps.” “She holds on to what happens; she does not forget or reject it. She keeps in her heart everything that she saw and heard. The beautiful things, like those spoken to her by the angel and the shepherds, but also the troubling things: the danger of being found pregnant before marriage and, now, the lowly stable where she has had to give birth. That is what Mary does. She does not pick and choose; she keeps. She accepts life as it comes, without trying to camouflage or embellish it; she keeps those things in her heart.”

Second, Mary “ponders.”  “The Gospel speaks of Mary “bringing together,” comparing, her different experiences and finding the hidden threads that connect them. In her heart, in her prayer, she does exactly that: She binds together the beautiful things and the unpleasant things. She does not keep them apart, but brings them together.  And in this way she discerns their greater meaning, from God’s perspective. In her mother’s heart, Mary comes to realize that the glory of the Most High appears in humility; she welcomes the plan of salvation whereby God must lie in a manger. She sees the divine Child frail and shivering, and she accepts the wondrous divine interplay between grandeur and littleness.”

Mary keeps and ponders.

Brothers and Sisters, we are at the threshold of a new year. Our Mother invites us to look back into the year we are bidding goodbye to. Surely, there were troubling experiences that we have faced. Maybe some of them still disturb us, maybe even challenging our faith. With Mary our Mother, we can review them with the same attitude she has illustrated in the gospel—keeping and pondering. This is the way to grow towards maturity of our faith.

As we cross the threshold to another year, we start our journey with confidence despite the glaring signs of a possibility of a hard and challenging life ahead. We are confident because we have Mary, Mother of God and our Mother too accompanying us and reminding us always not to be anxious but to trust in God’s wisdom and goodness.