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| Mary "pondering" |
(Mary, the Mother of God, 2014:
This homily was given on January 1, 2014 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I.,
by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Luke 2:
16-21.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Mary, the Mother of God 2014]
She pondered the past to prepare for the future.
I’m talking, of course, about
Mary, our Blessed Mother.
She pondered the past in order to
prepare herself for what was to come in her life.
We know this from today’s gospel
reading, in which we read the following line: “Mary kept all these things, reflecting
on them in her heart.” We also know it
from Luke 2: 51 which says pretty much the same thing. There the evangelist writes, “[Jesus] went
down with [Mary and Joseph] and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and
his mother kept all these things in her heart.”
And what exactly were “these
things?”
Well, very simply, they were the events surrounding Jesus’
birth and youth. That’s obvious
since the first reference to Mary “keeping these things in her heart” occurs
during St. Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus, while the second one occurs
after he tells the story of the finding of Jesus in the Temple when our Lord
was twelve-years-old.
At the time, Mary didn’t know
exactly what the future held for her and for her family. Much of that was hidden from her eyes—as our
future is hidden from our eyes. Yes, Mary
knew that her Son, Jesus, was unique—the only man ever to be conceived directly
through the power of the Holy Spirit.
She knew that her Son Jesus had a special relationship with God, and that
he was the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies which are found in what we now
call the Old Testament. She also knew
that Jesus would somehow “save his people from their sins” (as the angel had told
Joseph before our Lord was born). And
she knew that he would establish some kind of kingdom that would never end.
But beyond that Mary didn’t know
too many other things regarding God’s plan to reconcile the world to himself
through his divine Son. She certainly
didn’t know all of the details of the story that we know—although she was aware
of the fact that, in some way, she—and her Son—would suffer greatly. She became aware of that disturbing detail courtesy
of the holy man Simeon, who said to her at the Presentation, “And a sword will
pierce your own soul too, so that the
secret thoughts of many will be laid bare.”
But our Blessed Mother faced all
those future events with faith and strength when they actually occurred—because
she had prepared for them well by “pondering” the past. In other words, she got ready to face the
future events of her life by reflecting on—by meditating on—by praying about—the
things God had already done for her
and for her family.
And even for her nation.
We see evidence of this in her
Magnificat: that prayer of praise that Mary said when she visited her pregnant
cousin, Elizabeth, at the Visitation.
Notice how the lines of that
prayer that I’m about to read to you point to past
events either in Mary’s own personal life or in the life of the nation
of Israel—past events that Mary had obviously pondered and reflected on in her
heart. Mary said in her Magnificat, “God has looked with favor on his lowly
servant; the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name; he has
shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their
conceit. He has cast down the mighty
from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, and rich he has sent away
empty. He has come to the help of his
servant Israel, for he remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to
our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.”
As I said a few moments ago, just
as Mary’s future was hidden from her eyes, so our future is hidden from our
eyes. None of us knows what tomorrow—or
even the rest of today—will bring. And
this uncertainty about the future can easily cause us to become fearful or
anxious or depressed (or all of the above!)—unless we learn from our Blessed
Mother, and follow her example of pondering
the past.
In this case, our past!
This is something we should do frequently
when we pray—and especially when we pray in the presence of the Blessed
Sacrament. We should spend some time reflecting
on the ways—the many ways—that God has been there for us in the past; on the
ways he has helped us and provided for us in the past; on the ways he has
gotten us through every difficulty and trial that we’ve faced in the past.
And he has! In one sense, at least, Almighty God has
helped each and every one of us to deal successfully with everything we’ve had
to face in our lives thus far. We know
that because we’re still here! We know
that because we’re still alive! The very
fact that we’re still breathing and have a pulse after all that we’ve been
through is a living testimony to the faithfulness of God! His words to St. Paul are true for everyone:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for in your weakness my power reaches its
perfection.”
This means that we can—and that we
should—have confidence and trust in God as we look to our uncertain future, as
Mary had confidence and trust in God in the face of her uncertain future.
Her pondering prepared her well—and helped her to stay faithful to God
and on the road to heaven.
May our pondering help all of us
to do the very same thing.