On the night when Jesus was born, the world held its breath in the stillness and then gasped, exploding in the brilliance of angelic hosts, wandering stars, a virgin flowering forth a child, and when it was finished, somehow, someway, the God of the universe had crammed himself into human flesh and taken our nature to himself. It was in this very instant that death itself was put on notice that it was going to be stood on its head. St Ephrem notes how it was Eve, the natural mother of all people, who had become the well-spring of death to all living, because it was Eve who first sinned and caused death to enter our reality as a natural consequence of separation from God. “But Mary,” he says, “budded forth, a new shoot from Eve the ancient vine; and new life dwelt in her.”
At Christmas, we stand shocked by the immense paradoxes with which we are confronted. Impossible things suddenly exist, and everything we thought we knew is left in flux. St Gregory the Wonder-Worker marvels at the way in which Mary becomes the new Eve, saying, “When I remember the disobedience of Eve, I weep. But when I view the fruit of Mary, I am again renewed. Deathless by descent, invisible through beauty, before the ages light of light; of God the Father wast Thou begotten; being Word and Son of God, Thou didst take on flesh from Mary Virgin, in order that Thou might renew afresh Adam fashioned by Thy holy hand.”
And so today, still in the midst of the Christmas celebration, we acknowledge this strange reality, Mary, a mere human being, has somehow become the Mother of God. She accomplishes this feat through the simple act of trusting in his word and allowing God to draw her into his divine plan.
This is where I am stopped short – I don’t really understand any of this. If you ask me a question about the faith, I’ll put my hand on my chin and pretend to concentrate for a moment, then I’ll say something wise and cryptic. All I can hope is that there are no follow-up questions.
Many of us want to know more about the faith. We want to know about Jesus, to read the Catechism from cover to cover and understand it, to ponder the mysteries of God’s action in our lives. We want a loud, clear voice to respond to our prayers with simple instructions. For me personally as a priest, as I bump up against the traditions of the Church, especially the ancient habits of praying the mass that priests have followed for thousands of years, I don’t know why they’re always there or why I do what I do. But I maintain the traditions without fully understanding, because I would hate to decide that I know better without actually having any clue what it is that I am rejecting. This is all to say, the ways of God are above us. This is why the shepherds are said to marvel and be in amazement at the message of the angels and the birth of Christ.
God’s love is his love, it doesn’t have to make sense. Why does he care for us, he just does. Why did he die for our sins, he felt like it was worth it. Why did he choose to be born a child with a human mother, there’s no fancy reason to explain it other than to say that it’s because he wanted to be like us so that we might be more like him.
It can be frustrating to not understand more, and we have so many questions, so many doubts. For all of us who like the shepherds are amazed at the birth of Christ but don’t quite know how to explain it – rest easy. We have a mother. We have Mary.
While the shepherds wandered away, Mary sat by the crib, looked at her son, and pondered in her heart. She looked upon his face, she nursed him, and smelled that new-born baby smell on his head. She watched him grow up. A mother knows her son better than anyone.
Draw close to Mary, and you will draw close to Our Lord. Know her, and you will know her son. We may not always understand, but love doesn’t need explanations, it is content to simply be in the presence of the one it loves.
And how do we draw near to her? Easy. She’s with us all the time, loving us from Heaven. Gerard Manley Hopkins compares her to the air we breathe, writing:
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere
When it comes to the faith, take a deep breath, feel the presence of the Church like a Mother. Our Lord is here, always with his Mother, always desiring to know us better, always loving us.
Roseanne T. Sullivan says
Lovely reflection. I used that poem by Hopkins once in my Christmas letter. My favorite part is:
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
Here is the whole beautiful poem:
The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe
WILD air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air. 45
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth, 65
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.
Gloria Whitfield says
I dearly love this poem. Just discovered it about a year ago.