Because preaching is such a labor of love for me,
but a labor nonetheless,
I can never remember throwing a sermon out.
No matter how banal or ineffective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, as a matter of habit,
part of my preparation toward preaching on Sunday
is a review of previous sermons preached on that feast,
or texts, to see if there is some kernel of an idea
that is worthy of further development…
or some homiletic path once taken
that should forever be abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
True to that pattern, this past week I went searching
through digital files and decades of 3 ring binders
with remnants of preaching that go back to 1974.
But, through all of those archives
I could not find a single sermon for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, I know that in the past 49 years of preaching
I must have preached on this feast before.
But, I was lacking any previous starting point
either to build upon or repudiate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The one general impression I do have of this feast
is that it is a very, very confused feast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the vast majority of our fellow citizens,
obviously, it is New Year’s…the beginning of the civil year.
Or, for many, a lost day of recovering from revelry
that, for many, was prolonged into the wee hours of the morning.
I doubt few of them are among us.
One blogger thought we should rename this day
the solemnity of low attendance!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There actually is a ritual mass in the new Roman Missal
for the beginning of the civil year,
but the rubrics indicate that \u201cthis Mass may not be used
on January 1st.\u201d
As I said, a little confusing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traditionally, 1 January, the Octave of Christmas,
is also the Feast of the Circumcision,
when Jesus underwent the ritual that rendered him a Jew.
Yet, that festival remembrance has all but been erased,
apart from the echo in today\u2019s gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That gospel also reminds us that this feast
also celebrates the name of Jesus\u2026
but that ritual aspect seems off the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so, while it is New Year’s,
the Feast of the Circumcision,
and the Naming of Jesus,
the Church celebrates none of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, this is the Solemnity of Mary,
the Mother of God.
It is not a feast many would guess would occur today,
and the logic of feast may not be abundantly clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A number of years ago, Andrew Greeley
commented on the incongruity
of this civil festival with this Marian feast:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is curious that the liturgists chose to make New Year\u2019s Day, the day of hangovers and guilt and of resolutions that we know we\u2019re not going to keep, a day to honor the Mother of Jesus who hardly is an appropriate symbol for how many people may feel this day. However, the first day of a new year is a day of new beginnings and Mary represents the perennial new beginning. For one, she brought her son into the world [; this] was the most dramatic new beginning, the most dramatic revolution in human history. The human condition was changed forever. We could breathe easier again. There were grounds for hope. Despite all the things that can go wrong in human life, we began to believe that love was stronger than hatred, good stronger than evil, life stronger than death. So we can accept that we have gone through another frustrating, disappointing, perhaps unhappy year of our life\u2026[but because of] Mary and her son we will continue to live and continue to hope.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Since I read that quote When we consider the title of Mary as \u201cmother of God,\u201d This is not like Greek mythology, No, Jesus, fully human and fully divine, While I was pondering this paradox, This is an unusually powerful fictional depiction While Shakespeare is in the room with her all night, The pyrotechnics between these two are riveting: And, in the course of the evening, The power in the paradox is palpable In a striking way, It also reminds us that Mary is not only the queen of heaven, So, in the spirit of Mary, the Mother of God, Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring out the grief that saps the mind Ring out a slowly dying cause, Ring out the want, the care, the sin, Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring in the valiant man and free, And so, while it is New Year’s,
at the beginning of last week,
I have been trying to concretize how this feast
that focuses on Mary\u2019s title as the \u201cMother of God\u201d
might be a source of hope and inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
what the feast and the underlying teaching stress
is that Mary was not just the mother of Jesus,
not just the mother of the Human nature
of the second person of the trinity,
but also Mother of the Christ, the divine nature of that person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
not like Hercules whose mother was a mortal
and whose father was a God
and he, in turn, was a demi-god.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
had a human mother:
Mary, mother of the person of Jesus in his humanity and divinity\u2013
Theotokos, the Greeks called her\u2013the God-bearer.
I know how contradictory that sounds\u2013
how a human could parent the divine \u2026
but it is precisely in that paradox,
in that juxtaposition of human and divine,
in the inexplicable linking of a creature with the creator,
that hope is born anew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I recalled the play Elizabeth Rex<\/em>,
which I attended a number of years ago,
at Chicago Shakespeare theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of Queen Elizabeth the night before she had her lover,
Robert, Earl of Essex,
beheaded for treason.
There is historical evidence that the night before the beheading
she had a Shakespeare play performed for her.
While we do not know which one,
Canadian playwright, Timothy Findley, chooses
Much Ado about Nothing<\/em> and, in a pivotal twist,
the Queen has the actors sequestered
and, in need of distraction as she awaits the dawn,
she spends the night with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
it is not Shakespeare who commands her attention,
but Ned Lowenscroft, Shakespeare\u2019s most famous leading lady,
whom Elizabeth had seen play Beatrice that night
and who himself is dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the actor who is so effective at playing women
and the Queen, Elizabeth Rex, who has had
to bury her femininity…and rule like a king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
they strike a bargain…
Ned promises to teach the queen how to be a woman
and Elizabeth accepts the task of teaching Ned
how to be a man….<\/p>\n\n\n\n
as they psychologically and physically
dress and undress each other,
baring their own souls and stripping away
the masks of the other,
shearing away the facades and tearing down the walls
each has constructed to protect themselves.
In the course of the evening,
they both reveal and explore how the death of a lover
has changed them, but how it can also transform them
to live and die with more authenticity,
with more self-respect, and with
even more love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
this wondrous piece of art
touches on a fundamental human paradox-
that women can teach men how to be men,
that men can teach women how to be women,
that children can teach parents how to be adults,
that the poor can teach the wealthy about true richness,
that the sick can teach the apparently healthy about wellness,
and that the dead can teach the living something about life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but the queen of paradox who, along with Joseph, played a critical role
in teaching God how to be a human being.
And, in that unusual mixture of humility and tenacity,
she maintained fidelity to her son\u2019s ministry
while largely marginalized in a patriarchal society.
Maybe she has something to teach us as well
as the old year cedes to the new.
As our resolutions to lose a few pounds and better health
turn to resolutions to gain a few friends
and move toward more authentic living and dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but in the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson [1850]
that sound so oddly contemporary, We pray:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to humankind [all mankind].<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nthe Feast of the Circumcision,
\nand the Naming of Jesus,
\nthe Church celebrates none of those.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":63095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3294],"tags":[3253,3647],"class_list":["post-63086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-praedicandi","tag-ed-foley","tag-solemnity-of-mary"],"yoast_head":"\n