A friend texted me a picture last week of his three-person nativity set—Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. He added this prayer, “Thank you YHVH for becoming human like us!!!” Then he called attention to Mary and Joseph’s hands. He said, “Mary and Joseph’s hands are clutching their hearts and chest at what they are experiencing. May you, I and His Church do the same this Christmas season.”
It was only then that I noticed Mary and Joseph’s hands are also clutching their hearts in two of the creches at my house—including the one you see above. The fact that I paid attention to the hands only after someone had named it has both disturbed and inspired me as I have looked at today’s Scriptures.
Today, eight days after Christmas, is the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God. Jesus was a male child born into a Jewish family. It was Mosaic law that eight days after birth a male child would be circumcised to claim him as God’s child and then named. Our Gospel today tells the story of that.
The 1st century church in Rome also honored Mary as the Mother of God on this day. Various days in various places and centuries were dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God. However, it wasn’t until after Vatican II that the church chose this day for that celebration. Pope Paul VI explained, “This celebration, placed on January 1 is meant to commemorate the part played by Mary in this mystery of salvation. It is meant to also exalt the singular dignity which this mystery brings to the holy Mother.” (from Marialis Cultus, 5)
Back to clutched hearts. Clutching at the heart is a spontaneous physical expression of emotions of wonder and awe. What was it like for Mary and Joseph as they looked at “their” child whom they knew to be the Son of God? What was it like for Mary to hold God in her arms, to kiss the face of God? What was it like for Joseph to know God made him responsible for the safety and upbringing in the faith of this child?
I’ve tried praying those thoughts with my hand over my heart, but, somehow, it is enough beyond me that instead I find both hands over my mouth as I stare into the distance and realize that grasping the wonder of the fully human-fully God Jesus is totally beyond my capacity for prayer with understanding. I am held captive by the thought of the thought. I am on the edge of the veil.
So, I may not be of much use to you today, other than to encourage you to pray before a creche. See what God does with you and your heart.
Numbers 6: 22-27
Here we hear from Mosaic law how people were to be blessed. This text gives the words. A blessing meant God’s approval, God’s encouragement. You could say that a blessing was God’s smile. Today this Scripture connects the Mosaic tradition and law with Jesus’ birth and his parents’ response to the upside-down circumstances of his birth. The Church says God was smiling.
Galatians 4: 4-7
Just as the Scripture from Numbers reaches back in Jewish history, the selection from Galatians stretches forward. It is one of the places in the Bible that talks about the Holy Trinity without calling it “Trinity.” It puts Jesus in the center, as the person who connects us with Abba, the Father, through the Holy Spirit.
It is hard for us to fully appreciate Mosaic law. It set up the goal of “blessing,”—of God expressing his approval through bestowing goodness on those who obeyed over 600 rules. These rules covered every aspect of life—from how to wash your hands to how to give God praise to how to separate food in your kitchen to how to welcome a stranger to…..
The Vatican II document Die Verbum (On Divine Revelation) notes that Mosaic Law was a stage of revelation. It was God telling his people how to live in accordance with who God was/is.
When Jesus came, however, we entered an age of grace. It meant “So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir, through God.” Such a packed sentence! While we are expected to be obedient to God, as children are expected to be obedient to their parents, our obedience now comes from family membership. We are not owned by God. Jesus, when he became human like us, came to make us members of God’s family.
Imagining what it would be like to be Mary or Joseph is beyond me. But having at least a feather-touch level of understanding of what it means that we are brothers and sisters IN Christ and WITH Christ—that leads me to clutch my heart and catch my breath. I can’t understand, but I can feel the wonder.
Luke 2:16-21
Within that context, that picture of ourselves included in the family portrait of God, let’s look at the Gospel. There is mostly overlap with the Gospel of Christmas for a mass at dawn. Yet in the context of today’s celebration, it is a contrast that speaks. On one hand, the shepherds “made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds.” On the other hand, “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”
Back to heart clutching. We get a glimpse of Mary clutching her heart.
It informs mine. Christmas is so busy. So much to do. So little time. So many conversations, visits, needs expressed, loves celebrated. So much—that we can fail to notice the major figures in the story: Mary and Joseph, shepherds and next week the Magi—we can miss that ALL these folks are reverently clutching their hearts.
God has come. God has come to save us from our sins and our ways of sinning. God has come to claim us as brothers and sisters, to make us also CHILDREN of GOD.
Applications
How do we respond while we clutch our hearts? In honor of Pope Benedict XVI, whose passing we mourn today, here is a quote to guide our applications:
“Everyone wants to have life. We long for a life that is authentic, complete, worthwhile, and full of joy. This yearning for life coexists with a resistance to death, which nonetheless remains inescapable. When Jesus speaks about eternal life, he is referring to real and true life, a life worthy of being lived. He is not simply speaking about life after death. He is talking about authentic life, a life fully alive and thus not subject to death, yet one which can already, and indeed must, begin in this world. Only if we learn even now how to live authentically, if we learn how to live the life that death cannot take away, does the promise of eternity become meaningful.
But how does this happen? What is this true and eternal life that death cannot touch? We have heard Jesus’ answer: this is eternal life, that they know you—God—and the One whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. Much to our surprise, we are told that life is knowledge. This means, first of all, that life is relationship. No one has life from himself and only for himself. We have it from others and in a relationship with others. If it is a relationship in truth and love, a giving and receiving, it gives fullness to life and makes it beautiful. But for that very reason, the destruction of that relationship by death can be especially painful; it can put life itself in question. Only a relationship with the One who is himself life can preserve my life beyond the floodwaters of death, can bring me through them alive.” From the homily on Holy Thursday, St. Peter’s Basilica, April 1, 2010.
Prayer:
Eternal rest, grant to him, O Lord. And may perpetual light shine upon Pope Benedict.
And, “Thank you, YHVH for becoming human life us! As Mary and Joseph’s hands are clutching their hearts and chest at what they are experiencing, may you, I, and all His Church do the same this Christmas season.”
