Readings for Sunday, January 1/ Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God:Numbers 6:22-27
Psalm 67:2-3, 5-6, 8
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:16-21
“When the fullness of time had
come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those
under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
All of us go through life and
experience different things and those things – our baggage, in a sense – color
the way we understand and interact with the situations, places, and people we
encounter later in life. My own life experience greatly changes the way that I
pray with the passage I just quoted from St. Paul because I was actually adopted
shortly after my birth. To contemplate receiving ‘adoption as sons’ isn’t some
lofty thought for me, but is strikingly concrete. I think of the decisions
parents have to make about when, how, and if they should tell the child about
their adoption. I think about the struggle to understand what it means to be
adopted. I think about the occasional ‘out of place’ feeling that still makes
it’s way into my heart and the frustration of having to say “I don’t know” to
my family history on medical forms. That’s how I approach this simple sentence
of the story of being brought into the family of God. It’s tough sometimes, it
can be a bit messy, and it doesn’t happen without planning, preparation, and a
price tag.
This past weekend I took a little
road trip up to Ohio to visit my family up there and met up with my cousin
Britt. He and his wife are working on adopting a child into their family and he
was telling me all of the plans, preparation, and prices to make that a
reality. It turns out that a family has to have $12,000 before they can even
start the process because of legal fees and all sorts of hoops that one must
jump through to be able to adopt. But the truth, my brothers and sisters, is
that when Jesus Christ took on our flesh and came among us as a child, the
price was much higher than $12,000.
God had the plan drawn up from
all creation. He knew when He created Adam & Eve that they would fall and
that they and their descendents would need a savior. He knew everything that
would happen in all of time before time even began. He knew that you would be
there tonight in the spot you are with the people you’re with and even the
color of shirt you’d choose to wear. He’s God. He doesn’t predetermine things
where we lose our freedom, but He does know all that will happen. And so He set
out His plan and began to bring it to fulfillment. Those of you who attended
the Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve heard the Gospel of Matthew wherein he gave the
genealogy of Jesus… ‘Abraham became the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of
Jacob, Jacob the father of Joseph, and so on down to Jesus’. Through the Old
Testament we can look to the many ways that God was preparing His people for
what was to come; how the crossing of the Red Sea prepared the way for baptism,
how the Manna in the desert prepared the way for the Eucharist, and how the
prophets all spoke of the Christ who was to come. All of those things God was
preparing for our adoption. And then the day came to make it happen, to pay the
price and make us adopted sons and daughters of a heavenly Father.
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| The Circumcision from the Workshop of Giovanni Bellini |
This first day of the New Year,
the Octave of Christmas, in the Ordinary Form of the Mass (the Mass of Vatican
II) we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. This title of Our Lady
emphasizes the fact that she indeed bore God in her own womb and gave birth to
the Word Made Flesh. But in the Extraordinary Form Mass (the Mass prior to
Vatican II/Traditional Latin Mass), this feast is that of the Circumcision of
the Lord. This is so because in the Jewish tradition, on the eighth day after
birth every male child would be circumcised and given their name as a sign of
being brought into the family of God, the people of Israel. Interestingly
enough, we Christians also have a circumcision that we must undergo to be
brought into the family of God. But rather than a circumcision of the flesh, it
is one of the heart. In baptism, we are brought before the Lord and by the
blessed waters, original sin is cut from our hearts and we are joined to the
Church, the Body of Christ, the family of God. And there, too, we are given our
name in the Lord. That’s why the first line of the baptism ritual even today is
‘What name have you given your child?’ All of us have been circumcised in our
hearts, brought into the family of God and made sons and daughters of the
Father. But the truth is that we must continue to undergo a circumcision of our
hearts to be able to rejoice in the riches of the kingdom. There are still sins
that each of us cling to in this life, things that we have joined ourselves to
that pull us away from God and try to take us out of the family. Things that
the devil tries to use to make us think we don’t belong here. And the Lord
invites us today to let Him come to us once again and cut those things away, to
set aside the old and rejoice in the new. Christ paid a heavy price for our
adoption as sons a daughters -
that of His own life and blood. Are we really willing to do the same for Him?
I realize I’m saying this and
some of you are probably thinking, ‘Wow, Father, we were all joyful at the
start of a New Year and came looking for a nice pick-me-up homily to cap off
the Christmas octave but you’re being sort of a downer today.’ I recognize
that. But think about this as well. When Jesus came among us He didn’t come in
a nice little nativity scene like we have in the sanctuary. He was born in a
cave, where the animals were kept, and He was laid in a manger, a feeding
trough. I may be a city boy, but I have been to enough farms and barns to know
that animals don’t smell nice and they aren’t neat freaks. They can be pretty
disgusting at times, and yet that’s the place where Jesus comes. It’s not
pretty, but it’s reality. Also, think about the fact that on December 25 we
celebrate Christmas, the birthday of Jesus, the King of Peace! Then on the 26th,
St. Stephen the Martyr. On the 27th, St. John the Apostle, the only
one of the 12 Apostles not martyred. On the 28th, the Holy
Innocents, that army of youths slain in attempts to kill the Christ child. On
the 29th, St. Thomas Becket, who was martyred for the faith in
England. Are you sensing a trend?! The King of Peace comes indeed, but the
message is clear: the peace is not necessarily of this world but of the world
to come. Should we strive to attain peace in this life? Absolutely! Should we be
surprised if we don’t receive it like we want? No. That’s the journey of this
life, the purifying fire, if you will. That’s one reason that I wear the
particular vestments that I do. You have likely noticed that at almost every
Mass I wear this extra vestment on my left arm. It’s called a maniple. It is a
handkerchief and, since the priest’s hands were touching the Body of Christ, it
was tied around the left arm so that when he needed to wipe off his face from
the sweat of the work of celebrating Mass, he could do so without using his
hands. After years it became an official vestment of the priest and the prayer
that accompanies it when vesting speaks of it in reference to the ‘tears and
sorrows’ of this life. Living the faith isn’t easily. But the word of
consolation is this: Christ has taken on our flesh and was brought into the
family of God on Earth so that we might be adopted into the family of God in
Heaven. We are sons and daughters of a heavenly Father whose love knows no
bounds, and that love promises that we his children are not just sons and
daughters but also heirs of the Kingdom.
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