A Homily for the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Prince of Peace Catholic Church – 4:00 Mass
Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:41-52
Audio Recording
I have a question I’d like you to consider today. What’s so important about a name or a title?
Today’s Feast celebrates the fact that Mary of Nazareth, a 12-14 year old Jewish girl from a small community located in Galilee, became the Mother of God. The MOTHER OF GOD! Catholic tradition tells us that young Mary was the daughter of Sts. Joachim and Anne, and was a consecrated virgin, raised in the temple from age 3 where she lived a life of prayer, study, and service alongside other consecrated virgins.
Earlier in Luke’s gospel we learn that Mary was visited by the Archangel Gabriel, who announced to her that she had been chosen by God to bear his son and that he was to be named Yeshuʿ, which means “God’s salvation.” The name Jesus is the Latin form of the Greek work Iesous (ee-ay-sooce), which is a translation of the Hebrew name Yeshu.
Having been raised in the Temple, Mary would have understood the SIGNIFICANCE of this name. She would have known that it was a unique rendering of the more common Yeshua and she would have immediately understood that the angel was telling her that she had been chosen to be the mother of the Messiah. She would have understood the tremendous POWER of this name derived from the Jewish name for God, a name which could only be spoken once a year, and then only by the high priest.
Isn’t it amazing that God not only gave us his son to save us from our sins, but that he also gave us the privilege of calling on this sacred name of Jesus whenever we need his consolation, his mercy, and his healing? The NAME of Jesus is so powerful that itself can be a prayer, when spoken with love and attention.
For example, Christians for centuries have recited the Jesus Prayer, in which they slowly and lovingly repeat the words “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” or even just the name “Jesus,” often hundreds of times a day, amid their daily routines or while quietly following the rhythm of their breathing during prayer. By invoking the name of Jesus in this way, our daily lives can become a constant prayer with Christ always on our mind, on our lips, and in our heart.
Invoking Jesus’ name can also be helpful in moments of temptation or spiritual trial. The holy name of Jesus has power to bring all things into subjection to Christ, so that, as St. Paul says in his Letter to the Philippians, “at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Now back to Mary. Of course she didn’t understand HOW she could become pregnant, carry and give birth to the Messiah, as she had consecrated her life to God as a virgin and had never had intimate relations with a man.
When she innocently asked how this might happen, the angel Gabriel told her that the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Most Holy Trinity, God himself, would overshadow her and therefore the child would be called holy, the Son of God. While she didn’t understand how this could happen, she perfectly believed the message of this most awesome angelic messenger and she miraculously conceived the Savior of the World.
As the mother of Jesus, Yeshuʿ, God’s salvation, Mary was truly the ”MOTHER OF GOD.” This is due to simple fact that her Son IS God.
It’s so important for us to understand that Mary was not the mother of her Son’s flesh alone, nor the mother only of His human nature. This is because the Person of Jesus, the Son of God, is one Person. He is fully God and fully man, and that one Person is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. While he took on flesh within the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he remained fully God, fully divine.
I encourage you to ponder these mysteries in your own heart and allow the grace of this holy celebration to fill you with joy and gratitude as you enter more fully into the mystery that the Word of God, he who spoke into being the entire universe and created time itself, entered into time from all eternity and became one of us so as to save us from sin and give us everlasting life.
PONDER the most sacred name of Jesus and PONDER how a young teenage virgin conceived him miraculously in her womb to become the Mother of God.
PONDER the wonder and awe Mary must have experienced when the shepherds went in haste to see her newborn infant and told her how they had seen a multitude of angels announcing his birth.
Dear friends in Christ, this is our FAITH, this is TRUTH, this is our SALVATION. Praise be Jesus Christ!
And so I now ask you again, what’s so important about a name? What’s so important about a title? The answer is simple…EVERYTHING!
God bless you.