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Around this time of year, it isn’t at all unusual for people beaming
with a smile on their face and a cheery tone in their voice to say to me (and, I’m sure, to you, as
well) “Happy New Year.”
These attempts to wish me well, I think, are just a whole lot of
bunk. I don’t doubt the sincerity behind the greeting, but I
happen to agree with
Winston Churchill that “attitude is the little thing that makes all
the difference.” Whether my New Year will be happy or not has
absolutely zilch to do with planetary alignments overhead, how the
gods have fated my future days, or good wishes. No, my happiness this New Year has
everything to do with how I will decide to approach the events and
people that will comprise each day of this New Year. Yes, come what
may, it is I who ultimately will determine whether my New Year will
be happy or not.
I
learned this lesson many years ago. All of us have experienced
disappointments, some of them bitter, and I have experienced my
share of them. What I noticed even as a kid, however, is that some
people allow events and people to conspire against them in such ways
that, it appeared to me, the sun never seemed to rise in their lives.
Instead, each day was filled with gloom and doom...not even the
light provided by a lunar eclipse. Nothing inspired
them to “go and take on the day” with vim and vigor. Instead, it
seemed to me, disappointments—both great and small—caused these
people to become “frozen in time,” mired in the present and not wanting
to look back upon and re-experience those old disappointments yet
afraid to look forward to the new day for fear of experiencing new
disappointments reminding them of the past.
How
different this mentality is from Mary’s, as we just heard of it in
today’s gospel. As Mary listened to God’s word proclaimed through
the people and events in her life, we were told, “Mary kept all
these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” Instead of
experiencing disappointment and rehashing it over and over again so
as to dwell in the darkness caused by an unplanned pregnancy, the possibility of being divorced and stoned to death for being
an adulteress, as well as being dragged in haste to Egypt in the
middle of the night leaving everything behind and then back again, Mary instead chose to listen to God’s word being made
incarnate in those people and events. Whereas Mary could have
chosen to live in the present while dwelling in the darkness of the
past, she chose instead to dwell in the light.
“Blessed is
she who believed,” Luke tells us (1:45). Because Mary listened,
first, and then contemplated God’s word made flesh in her life,
second, Mary gave birth Jesus, cradled him in her arms, raised him
in grace and holiness, and walked beside Jesus as he became a “sign
of contradiction” that, quite literally, changed the course of
history where the darkness of yesterday’s sin—and all of those
tragic disappointments that result from sin—gives way to the light
of today’s new life—and all of those new opportunities due to the
grace of Christ. There is no one of Mary’s equal who can act as our
guide and support in acquiring this all-important attitude, namely,
contemplating God’s word made flesh as it is proclaimed in the
people and events of our lives.
While we may
be tempted to brush this aside by saying, “Well, that’s fine for
Mary. After all, she’s the mother of Jesus—the Mother of God
immaculately conceived—whose life was blessed by God.” Let’s
not forget, however, that Mary experienced seven great
disappointments—what are called “The Seven Great Sorrows (or
Dolors)”—that contradict any naive assertion that Mary’s days were
peachy keen! These included:
-
the
Presentation: Mary is in the Temple, having come with
Joseph to present the Child to God. They meet Simeon, the
holy man, and Anna, the prophetess. Simeon takes the Baby
in his arms, saying he will now die in peace because he has seen
Christ, then he foretells the sorrow to come. Sorrow as
sharp as a sword shall pierce Mary's heart because of her Child.
-
the
flight into Egypt: King Herod seeks to kill the Child.
Warned in sleep by an angel, Joseph takes Jesus and his mother
Mary, setting out for Egypt, where they lived in obscurity and
poverty until it was safe to return to Nazareth.
-
the
loss of Jesus for three days: When Jesus is twelve, Mary
and Joseph take him to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover.
On the return journey Joseph and Mary find at the end of the
first day that Jesus is not with them. Racked with
anxiety, they search for him. Nobody in the streets, not
even the beggars, can tell them where Jesus is. Not until
the third day do they find Jesus, in the Temple.
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the
way to Calvary: Mary has known fear and sorrow, but none
so great as seeing her beloved Son stumbling under the weight of
the Cross. She hears the jeering shouts from the crowd but
is utterly powerless to help him. Pity and love are in
Mary’s eyes as she gazes at his blood-stained face. To
many around her, Jesus is no better than a common criminal, and
her heart is breaking as she follows Jesus to Calvary (or
Golgotha).
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the
Crucifixion: With John, Mary stands at the foot of the
Cross. “A sword shall pierce thy soul,” Simeon had told
her at the Presentation. Truly Mary’s heart is pierced
with sorrow. Her beloved son is dying and she shares in
his suffering. Mary does not ask God to take away this
agony. No, his pain is hers, too. And now, Jesus
speaks from the Cross: “Woman, behold thy son.” Jesus give
his mother to John, and to us. For all eternity Mary is
our Mother.
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the
descent from the Cross: It is over. Dark clouds have
appeared in the sky and upon the world. Jesus is dead.
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus take down the Body from the
Cross. and Mary receives It in her arms. She is filled
with a sadness that perhaps only a mother can grasp. This
is her son. Once Mary had cradled Jesus in her arms.
listened to his voice, watched him working at the carpenter’s
bench. Now Jesus is dead. Mary does not weep,
because her grief is too great for tears. Mary is filled
with lament.
-
the
burial of Jesus: Hastily the Body is wrapped in a clean
linen cloth. Nicodemus has brought myrrh and aloes, and
the Body is bound in the Shroud with them. nearby is a new tomb,
belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, and there they lay Jesus.
Mary and John and the holy women follow them and watch as the
great stone to the sepulcher is rolled. It is the end.
As the Book of
Lamentations states: “Weeping she has wept in the night, and her
tears are on her cheeks: there is none to comfort her among all them
that were dear to her: all her friends have despised her, and are
become her enemies” (1:2).
Surely, Mary
had plenty of reason to spend her days dwelling in darkness,
resentful of the past, experiencing pain in the present, and fearing
future disappointment. But, she didn’t. Instead, despite
her many disappointments, Mary endeavored to see God present in the
midst of her many disappointments.
As you may
know, the name of the first month of the New Year, “January,” is
derived from the Roman god Janus, who has two faces, one looking to
the past and the other looking to the future. The beginning of a
New Year is a time to look back at the year that has just ended and
to look forward to the New Year ahead. But, using Mary as our
tutor, we must ask ourselves: Did I hear God’s word proclaimed
through the people and events in my life? How attentive and
responsive was I to
God’s word? Did I allow God’s word to sink deep into my soul
and to perfect me as a child of God?
Or,
conversely, did I not hear God’s word last year? Did I allow
disappointment, the demands of work, family, friends and the like to
overpower the people and events in my life where God was trying
desperately to speak to me? Was I too busy with the “things of
this world” to read the “signs of the times” through which God was
beckoning me to consider the “things of God’s kingdom”? Did I close
myself off to God’s gracious initiative because I was afraid that
the power of God’s love would cause my uneasy comfort with the
darkness of my status quo to become upset with by light of the new
life won by Christ?
By
contemplating the truthful answers to these questions, we can look
back to the past and forward to the future, anchored firmly in the
present, to make a fateful decision about the place of God in our
lives during the days of this New Year. It certainly is true, as
Socrates is reputed to have observed, “the unexamined life is not
worth living.” But, as Luke reminds us about Mary, when we choose
not to listen to God’s word proclaimed through the people and events
in our lives and to reflect on them in our hearts, we never will
experience the tremendous, fascinating, and terrifying sense of awe
that will be ours as the face of God shines upon us in the darkness
of our lives.
Today’s gospel presents Mary as a model of that new life God offers
all of us if we only prepare ourselves by “treasuring all these
words and pondering them in our hearts.” Mary valued God’s word,
treasured it, and took time to meditate and ponder it. She pondered
God’s word to discern what God was saying to her at every stage in
her life, and nowhere more so than as disappointment upon
disappointment weighed heavily and pressed in upon her throughout
her life. Just because God chose Mary to be the Mother of His
only begotten Son didn’t release her from the burden of
disappointment.
Whatever the situation in which we find ourselves this New Year’s
day—facing a tremendous loss, a financial hardship, declining or ill
health, a hurtful disappointment, or a painful decision to make—the
solution, the answer that is right for us, is found as we choose to
listen each day to what God has to tell us through the
people and events of our lives as God’s face shines upon us in the
darkness of our lives.
So, at the
risk of sounding like Ebenezer Scrooge whose attitude toward just
about everything was “Bah Humbug,” forget about wishing me or anyone else “Happy New
Year.” Thanks for the thought but it’s better to say, “Go Make a
Happy New Year for Yourself,” meaning, let our resolve be to listen
more to God’s word as it is made flesh each day in the events and
people of our lives, and to contemplate God’s word in our hearts.
Just maybe, then, we will experience the feeling of “amazement” Luke
describes the people experiencing after the shepherds made known to
them the
message the shepherds had been told about the birth of Jesus Christ and as
the face of God shined brightly upon all of them in the darkness of
their lives (Numbers 6:25).
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HOMILY
