January 1st - Mary Mother of God
God became man so that man might become like God. This is the mystery of Christmas, the mystery of grace. And in no creature after our Lord's sacred humanity do we see the divinity more clearly reflected than in the Virgin Mary.
Mary, as a virgin mother, is the most divine of all creatures. Her giving birth to Jesus without any pain or suffering or rupture or violence is a manifestation of the manner in which God the Father begot the Son from all eternity. Only two persons may be said to have begotten God -- The Father, and Mary.
Jesus is God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God; and on Christmas, he is God from Mary, truly proceeding from her as light through glass in a miraculous birth.
Listen online [here]!
1 comments:
Fr Ryan, this was very important for me to hear this homily. I really needed this spiritual boost, especially as I'm trying to grow more Marian in my spirituality (and with your other talks, more Josephite). This will probably stay with me the rest of my life as I contemplate "He who sees Mary sees the Father," as the uniqueness of begetting the Son is only reflected in the Father and Mary. Simply amazing. Do you have any references for Saints who speak on this matter? I'm sure De Montfort or one of those Marian saints surely spoke on this.
I did a simple search online and came across Psalm 110:3, which many Church Fathers have quoted, and which Augustine gave a homily on: "From the womb I have begotten you before the morning star." Well, saying that God the Father has a "womb" is very feminie/Marian sounding, and Augustine says this has a double meaning, wherein God begat Jesus before the stars were created, while the other meaning is that Mary begat Jesus in the middle of the night.
This is similar to last year when the Marian lesson I was taught at the start of 2016 was the Finding of Jesus in the Temple, where after 3 days lost Mary found Jesus. Ambrose said that this foreshadowed the Passion, where Mary would lose Jesus for 3 days but get him back (and why She didn't go to the tomb to anoint his body). This just stuck with me all year and I think of it every time during the Joyful Mysteries.
I'm totally spreading the word on this.
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