Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Today’s Epistle to the Hebrews gives a magnificent insight into the Christmas mystery:
“the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are one from their very
origin”. “I will proclaim your Name to my brothers, in the midst of the ecclesia I will praise you”,
This is a verse of the psalm (22) “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” which Jesus began
on the cross. The follows in our epistle a dialogue in between the Father and the Son taken from the
prophet Isaiah (8). To the father who says: “I will put my trust in him” the Son responds, “Here I
am, I and the children whom God has given me.” Jesus has “become like his brothers in every
respect”. This unity of being and communion of Christ and ourselves given through the mystery of
his birth in Bethlehem, is eminently true of the unity of “the child and his mother”, expression
repeated 3x in today’s gospel. “The child and his mother” are today totally united and the one focus
of attention. And the fulfilments of Scripture given in today’s Gospel apply to both child and
mother together, “Out of Egypt I have called Child and mother”. “Child and mother will be called
Nazorean.”
But both epistle and gospel of today surprise us in their developments. They join to their insights
into the mystery of the Emmanuel ‘God-with-us’ what we do not necessarily associate to our
celebration of Christmas. How can the marvelous, wonderful new communion of God and his
creature be immediately associated to the’ wailing and loud lamentation of Rachel weeping her
children, refusing to be consoled, because they are no more’. How is this Christmas, where we
invite all children to come to Bethlehem, be suddenly together with the fact that ‘all children in
and around Bethlehem two years old or under are no more’? When our Epistle looks to Christmas
saying: “Christ shared with us flesh and blood, shared all things with us”, it adds this surprising
saying, I quote, we are “held in slavery by the fear of death all our lives”. Is this word of Holy
Scripture true? Would, men and women, be close all their lives to the destiny of the Holy
Innocents? If I consider attentively this truth: that my perspective is of being no more... my lot
much different than that of the Holy Innocents? Jesus is born to share all things with me, not
simply for the sake of communion with me, but with a clear aim to free me, and all those who, in
one form or another are held in slavery by the fear of death all their lives, His aim being to destroy
the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil? Are we not touching the depth of the
Christmas mystery? ...
Today we celebrate the Mother of God, the Theotokos, the God Bearer. She indeed is totally one
with Jesus. Nothing touches closer to the identity of the Mother of God than her precise
characteristics as found in passages of Holy Scripture. All liturgy and literature, miraculous visions
of all times concerning her are only for the expounding of those precise characteristics found in
Holy Scripture. Let me share to you 4 characteristics of the Mother of God given in the Bible:
contemplating over and over the four verses where are found these four features forms the essence
of my spiritual life. I am all the more thankful for them as I am living a period of life where my
mental and physical capacities are very limited. These 4 features are not conveyed clearly in the
translations given in our Bibles. Our Bibles cannot convey the depth and richness of the original
biblical text. Sadly, this is true of many of the most important passages of the Bible. The first two
features are the opening words and the conclusive words of the dialogue of the Angel Gabriel with
Mary, the virgin of Nazareth, in the Gospel of the Annunciation. First the opening words of the
Angel Gabriel: listen to them: “χαῖρε-chaireh, κεχαριτωμένη-kecharitomeneh,... you have found
χάριν-charin in the presence of God” Char, char char! The opening salutation of the Angel Gabriel
is “char, char char”! Let me try a translation that echoes something of what a Greek reader
receives from the original text. The angel Gabriel opens thus: “Joy-dance to you, you who are
innerly joy-dance... you have found joy-dance in the presence of God”. The opening message of
God given by the Angel Gabriel is: “You, Mary, are being totally penetrated by the 3 fold joy-dance
of our Trinitarian communion.” This is the 1st marvelous feature of the Mother of God. Second
feature is given in the conclusive words of the angel Gabriel: “ὅτι οὐκ ἀδυνατήσει παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ
πᾶν ῥῆμα (oti ouk adunatesei para to Theou pan rema)”. It starts with oti-ὅτι, ‘because’, all the
message of this Annunciation is ‘because’...because of what? ‘Because’... because ‘that for which
nothing is impossible in the presence of God is the full Logos-Word’, and Mary answers: ‘Be it
done to me according to your Logos as just mentioned, the Logos for whom nothing is impossible’.
The Angel Gabriel concludes ‘for the Logos-Word nothing is impossible’, and Mary answers: ‘Be it
done to me therefore according to the ‘nothing is impossible of the Logos-Word.’The Mother of
God offers herself totally to the ‘all possible’ opened by the Logos-Word.
The next key features of the Theotokos are found in Mary’s canticle where she shares her
meditation after this event of the Annunciation. In her canticle, the main affirmation Mary wants
to underline is marked out thanks to a surrounding structure of two ‘because’, two oti-ὅτι: an oti-
ὅτι just before and an oti-ὅτι just after. Just before we have ‘because oti-ὅτι He has looked on the
lowliness-humility of his handmaid’. After we have; ‘because oti-ὅτι He does great things for me’.
What is the line sandwiched between these two ‘because’? between these two oti-ὅτι? between
‘because He has looked at the lowliness of his handmaid’. and ‘because He does great things for
me’? ‘Behold, from now on, from this Annunciation-visitation on, I will be seen ever going forward,
I will be seen a person in eternal beatitude, and this by every single generation of humanity, from
the generation of Adam and Eve and all the deceased generations to the very last generation at the
Parousia, at the end of times.’What a statement stemming from a little maiden from the tiny village
of Nazareth! This line is the equivalent to Mary saying: ‘I am more honorable than the Cherubim,
more glorious than the Seraphim, all will magnify me’ as our liturgy incessantly honors the
Theotokos. Mary only says this because she sees her identity sandwiched between: ‘because He has
looked on my lowliness’ and ‘because He does great things for me’. Every day I marvel at this bold
line, receiving the invitation to live a same sandwiching, a same exposing my nothingness before
God and recognizing the marvels He does for me. Thus, I too can live boldly my hope to be, here
and now, tasting my eternal beatitude among the saints.
But I can’t omit to share the 4th feature of the Theotokos. I seek constantly to refer to it:
διεσκόρπισεν ὑπερηφάνους διανοίᾳ καρδίας αὐτῶν (dieskorpizen uperephanous diavoia kardias auton). With His Strong Arm, the All-Mighty One scatters διεσκόρπισεν-dieskorpizen those who
promote, place upward ὑπερηφάνους-uperephanous the διανοίᾳ καρδίας αὐτῶν diavoia kardias
auton, the thoughts that cross their heart, good or bad. It is the most challenging in my life to
associate to God constantly sending away all thoughts that rise in my heart, good or bad! It is so
quick and easy to want to show off a thought that cruises through my heart, puffing it up for myself
or for others to see: over and over again I am promote my own thoughts. This line says to me:
“Agapetos, you must counter this”. The privileged way is to give myself, moment after moment, in
every activity to prioritize receptivity of God’s thoughts, God’s thoughts in Holy Scripture, God’s
thoughts in the Church’s Holy Liturgy, or practicing activities aiming at silencing my inner
thoughts. I wish to emphasize this 4th feature of the Mother of God. The canticle of Mary is often
commented as a patch work of Old Testament sayings, but, in the Old Testament, I find nothing
comparable to Maty’s expression ‘uplifting the thoughts of the heart’. Are we not in the presence of
a unique original perception of the Mother of God! She sees our fallen state. The Book of Sirach
says: (Sir 25.12) “Worst of all wounds is that of the heart”! She know how destructive the ‘uplifting
the thoughts of my heart’ can be.
In summary, the 4 pillars of my spiritual life feed on 4 precise verses of Holy Scripture. 1 With
Mary I receive the encompassing joy-dance of the Three Divine Persons, 2 With Mary I welcome
the ‘nothing is impossible’ of the 2nd Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Logos 3 As Mary I
sandwich myself exposing to God my nothingness and at the same time seeing God doing marvels
for me, 4 I fight against every promotion of my own thoughts... With these 4 pillars I hope to be a
true child of Bethlehem. I boldly hope to be counted among the Holy Innocents dancing today in
Heaven. Christ is born.
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