Advent 4 - Mary and the Incarnation

 

Homily for Advent 4

Mary and the Incarnation

December 22, 2024

 

            It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman, and such is the case with Jesus Christ and His Mother, Mary. We can’t speak about the Incarnation without bringing up her essential role in bringing the Word-Made-Flesh into space-and-time. In particular, God prepared Mary for this role in four major ways.

            First, she is called the theotokos – the Mother of God. But this title of Mary wasn’t without controversy. In the early 400s, a priest named Nestorius began to declare that Mary couldn’t be called Mother of God, because wouldn’t that seem to imply that she was greater than God? After all, God is outside of time and doesn’t need to be born – how can we call her the Mother of God?

            The Church met at the Council of Ephesus to discuss this question – can we call Mary the Mother of God, if God is not born? They had to make an important distinction about Jesus. Jesus has two natures, but is only one Person. Do mothers give birth to a nature or to a person? Clearly, it’s to a person. When a mom gives birth, the doctor doesn’t hold up the child and declare, “It’s a human being!” Of course it is! But who is it? Is it a boy or a girl, is it Johnny or Sally? So they declared that Mary gave birth to the person of Jesus, not just to His human nature. And the Person of Jesus is both God and Man. Therefore it is right to call her “Mother of God”. Interestingly, when news of this decision reached the ears of the people of Ephesus, they began to party in the streets, declaring again and again, “Mary Theotokos! Mary Theotokos!” The good Christians already knew – Mary is the mother of God.

            Second, God prepared Mary for this task through her Perpetual Virginity. She never shared her body with anyone – her womb was His alone. Even though it wasn’t officially declared until the seventh century, it was always believed, even from the earliest days of the Church.

            But wait! There are Bible passages that speak about Jesus’ brothers and sisters. How can that be? There are two possible explanations. First, there is no Greek word for cousins or other blood relatives that aren’t siblings. So, the Gospel writers may have meant that Jesus’ relatives, but not actual siblings, are referenced here. There is also an ancient tradition that St. Joseph was much older than Mary, and that he was a widower but had children from his first marriage. These children would have been half-brothers of Jesus. So regardless of how they are referenced, we know that Jesus was the only child of Mary, because the temple of her body was reserved for Him alone.

            Third, God prepared Mary by allowing her to be conceived without Original Sin, which we call the Immaculate Conception. Consider – if you could create your own parents, wouldn’t you create them perfect? Of course! How could Jesus dwell in a heart that was opposed to Him through sin? Thus, for Christ to dwell a few inches below the Immaculate Heart of Mary, He would need that heart and soul to be perfectly clean, without even the slightest stain of sin.

            In February of 1858, a young shepherd girl named Bernadette was gathering some sticks for her family’s fireplace, when a wind rustling the trees made her look up. To her surprise, hovering in a small cave a short distance away was a beautiful woman dressed in white. The girl asked this strange apparition, “Who are you?” The woman replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

            News of this strange phenomenon began to spread, until the parish priest called her in for questioning. He demanded, “Who is it that you saw?” She replied, “I do not know who it was; she called herself ‘the Immaculate Conception’.” The priest asked, “Do you know what that means?” But Bernadette, being uneducated, had no idea what that meant. The priest was shocked that this uneducated girl had just called Mary by a title that she didn’t even understand! Clearly, she was truly seeing Our Lady, and to this day Lourdes, France is a popular pilgrimage destination where people honor Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

            Finally, Our Lord could not leave His mother’s body to suffer the anguish of the tomb, so we profess as Catholics that at the end of her earthly life, He took her body and soul to Heaven without death. This is called the Assumption. After Christ ascended into Heaven, Mary went to live with St. John who soon moved from Jerusalem to Ephesus. There she lived for about fifteen more years, and when the time came for her to end her earthly life, the Holy Spirit miraculously inspired all of the Apostles to gather in Ephesus to say goodbye to their spiritual mother. According to tradition, she fell asleep peacefully, and they bore her body to a tomb that they had prepared. But there was one Apostle who hadn’t made it there in time – St. Thomas, who was preaching the Gospel in India, which is quite a distance. So when he returned, she was already in the tomb. In great grief, he went by himself to the tomb and was surprised to see that the stone was off of it, and the body of the Blessed Virgin was being taken directly into Heaven. According to the tradition, Our Lady’s belt dropped down into his hands, so we still have it, and it is still venerated in India. How fitting that she who was not touched by Original Sin would not have to suffer death, which is a consequence of Original Sin!

            During Advent and Christmas, we often focus on Mary – as Elizabeth does in the Gospel today. But Mary’s entire being is to point the way to Jesus. Immediately after Elizabeth praises her in the Gospel, Mary launches into her Magnificat – a beautiful song of praise of God: “My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Everything good about Mary is for Jesus. This is why we can go to her as a mother, trusting that she will not distract us from her Son but lead us to Him. And this is why we can imitate how she completely yielded her life to Him – she only existed to bring Him into this world. And we, too, only exist to love and praise Him here and in eternity.