Something about Mary

Gospel
Luke 2:16-21 

The shepherds hurried away to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. When they saw the child they repeated what they had been told about him, and everyone who heard it was astonished at what the shepherds had to say. As for Mary, she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen; it was exactly as they had been told.
  When the eighth day came and the child was to be circumcised, they gave him the name Jesus, the name the angel had given him before his conception.






Sometimes you could imagine that God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus partially because she was this young, innocent, obedient young woman with no authority or status to call her own. Virtually no more than a living 'Ark of the 'Covenant'; a tabernacle (as some of her other titles name her).


It is an easy place to put Mary - to name her no more than a mother - a necessary component in the divine becoming human. 


But there was something about Mary.


Remember that before she said 'Yes', she said 'How?' Mary accepted God's Will but she also became  a willing, active participant in the Incarnation; in the life of her Son from the very beginning. 

 God's Will is meant to change the world; accepting our role in that means we have to want to change the world too; it is hardly a role for the faint-hearted.

The wisdom to ask the searching question is echoed time and time again from Jesus' first visit to the Temple. At the end, Jesus speaks again his mother's words 'Thy will be done'. Who taught him that women and outcasts are people too; who taught him that there are some things worth the risk of dying for?

Is it any wonder that, when Jesus is heard speaking out of turn and with authority; he is identified as his mother's son?


Mary's first title was Theotokos - God Bearer. 

It is all she is

It is ALL she is

wordinthehand2012
















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