The Mother of God

January 1^st is the secular New Year, and yet we celebrate the Blessed Mother, in particular the solemnity of Mary as “Mother of God.”

This idea of Mary as Mother of God begins in Sacred Scripture. When our Blessed Mother visits her cousin Elizabeth we know that a profound mutual sharing in the Gospel took place between them and the children in their wombs leapt for joy. Elizabeth in her joy tells Mary, “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43) Lord in this instance is a substitute for Yahweh. The Jewish people would not utter God’s name out of respect, they would substitute Yahweh with Adonai (Lord). In Greek the substitute is Kyrios (Lord). When “L” for Lord is capitalized (in Scripture) that signifies that it is being used as a substitute for God and not for a king or some noble, when it is used for a king or some important person it is then used with the lower case “l.” The biblical foundation showing that Mary is God's mother is set; however there is more that helps us understand this truth.

Calling Mary the Mother of God also protects Jesus’ divinity. We believe that Jesus from the moment of his conception was and always is fully divine and fully human. His two natures were always intact and worked harmoniously. Therefore, since Jesus is always Divine, even while in the womb, Mary must be God’s mother, if she is not, then logically Jesus could not be Divine, how can we separate Jesus’ divinity, whether in Mary's womb or after birth? We cannot, at least without doing damage to the person of Christ. The Council of Ephesus understood this and therefore declared Mary, "Theotokos" the God bearer. However, this debate about Mary would be taken up again at Chaldecon in 451 when Pope Leo I helped define the two natures of Christ.

A better way to explain this is through a logical argument, one given by St. Leo the Great I believe. For example,

All A’s are B’s.

All B’s are C’s.

Hence all A’s are C’s.

This is logic 101. Let us replace the letters with Jesus, Mary, and God.

Mary (A) is the Mother of Jesus (B)

Jesus (B) is God the Son (C)

Hence Mary (A) is the Mother of God's Son (C)

We must remember, however, that Mary is not God’s mother in terms of her being before God or giving birth to the Trinity, she is not God. There is a concept called the internal Trinity and the external Trinity, that which we see is the external Trinity, i.e. Jesus in the flesh and that which we do not see, the hidden God so-to-speak. There is more to it than that, but for our purposes it suffices to say that Mary is the Mother of God in terms of what we see, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God.

The Church defends Mary as Mother of God because in doing so we are really defending and clarifying who Christ is.

Beyond just the theological understanding is that Mary shares her motherhood with the Church and all of humanity. Jesus gives her to be a mother to us. It is in her life that we find motherhood and faith that knows no equals, a faith that serves as an example to the Church. As a mother she always looked to taking care of her family, as a person of faith she always sought to do the will of God, always saying yes to what God asked of her.

She was asked to be the mother of God not because it was by chance, rather she was asked because of who she was, the perfect example of faith, the new Eve, or what Eve should have been, Immaculate.

We can take courage and comfort because Mary now looks after us just as she looked after her own family, always looking to our good and happiness. Let us make sure then that just like Elizabeth we recognize her and when we ask, “why should this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should visit me,” we will know the answer instinctively, because to be persons of faith it is none other than experiencing a mutual sharing in the Gospel. And that is what we are doing today with the Mother of God.

Fr John

Christmas: In those Eyes

When I was a young boy I would love going to the movies with my dad and we went often. Back in those days the prices for a movie, a matinee for a child was $1.00 and $1.50 for an adult, what happened? Anyway, my dad loved the Italian directors, Franco Zeffirelli, Sergeo Leone, and others, and about half of the movies we saw were in Italian. I loved the Spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood, at this time they were re-showings as they had been released back in the sixties.

I remember the movie “Jesus of Nazareth” when it premiered on TV back in 1977 and my dad’s excitement to see it. He was excited because it was a religious movie which had an unbelievable cast, Michael York, Anne Bancroft, Ernest Borgnine, James Earl Jones, Donald Pleasance, Laurence Olivier, and most of all it was a Zeffirelli film.

Watching that move actually mesmerized me and froze me right in my tracks. I was only eight but I remember being pulled right into the story, I felt as if Jesus were speaking to me, amazing indeed.

Many, if not all of us have seen this film at one time or another. There are many moving scenes throughout. As I reflect on Christmas there is one scene in particular that stands out to me. It’s not when Jesus was born, which would be the fitting scene to incorporate in today’s reflection, rather it was a scene were some Jewish men were crying out to God for relief.

The scene takes place when Jesus was 12 years old and had just been through his bar mitzvah and celebrating it in the local synagogue. Some Roman soldiers had come into Nazareth to commandeer food supplies and resources from the people. In the scene you can see the anguish on the Jewish people as they lived in fear of the Romans who had oppressed them. As the soldiers leave one Jewish man falls to his knees and begins to cry out, “How long O’ Lord until you help us, how long O’ Lord?” Another man says, “The Lord has abandoned us.” Then in the corner the young Jesus looks at the man crying out and it is in that look that says everything to us. I will never forget it, the look was one of compassion and a deep longing to reach out and help. When you watch it - it stirs up tremendous emotion as every fiber of our own being desires to reach out to the oppressed and help them. In Jesus’ eyes you can see love and you can see that He knows it will be Him that saves the people, not from political oppression, but from the oppression of sin, for the Israelite first, who are the apple of his eye, and even for the Roman – the Gentile.

Jesus desired to help, to renew that which was flawed. God comes and breaks into human history, not as someone who comes in pomp and circumstance, but in the quiet, and in humility, and most importantly as one of us. He knows our joys, because he himself experienced them, in his own celebrations of his faith, his family, with his friends. He also knows our sorrows as he himself experienced death, that of Joseph, Lazarus, and his own suffering.

We can take great assurance in the fact that we are never alone, even when we do face difficulty; it is Jesus who looks at us with those eyes, the eyes of eternal love. When we celebrate life, at baptisms, weddings, ordinations, family reunions, parties, life’s accomplishments, it is Jesus who is there right next to us celebrating and joining in with the singing and even in the dancing, the dance of life.

Christ comes into the world to be in relationship with us, to know us face to face, to walk with us side by side. There is no greater gift than for God to not only desire that but to actually do it, and then to leave us with the greatest example of love, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Just awesome!

We honor that gift of God’s life breaking into human history with sharing with one another, the exchange of gifts; we also decorate, put up lights, put up Christmas trees, and everything else that goes with Christmas. It is the biggest birthday party for anyone person in the history of the world. Every light, every tree, and every carol we sing, they are all candles on a birthday cake and the candles are for Jesus, not for his age, but in honor for his love. Therefore, there can never be enough trees, lights, and decorations. The more the better!

I ask that you remember tonight or tomorrow when you open your gifts with one another to not forget that there is another in your midst taking pleasure and joy in your sharing and he desires nothing more than your happiness, it’s hard to miss him, because when you look into those eyes, you see love, you see sacrifice, and most of all you know you see the Christ – the one who is to come, Immanuel!

Fr. John

4th Sunday of Advent

The promise that God originally uttered in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve, “You will strike at his heel, while he strikes at your head,” is ready to begin, to take flesh, and be accomplished. This was accomplished in its essence by God alone, but he asked others to partake in Jesus’ journey, and one such person who partook more than rest was Mary, his mother.

In the first reading from Isaiah and then again in St. Matthew, “they shall name him Emmanuel . . .God is with us” is to be understood not symbolically or figuratively, but literally. Jesus is God! And he will come to us in the flesh, his flesh is from Mary, therefore he is also fully human. He comes to do what we cannot because of our weakness. He will come to repair what we damaged.

The beautiful part of Jesus’ mission is that he does not go it alone. Rather he surrounds himself with community, i.e. 12 apostles, and many other disciples. Jesus is mission on earth, to bring Good News and grace is a mission he allows others to share in.

And there is one person in particular that he allows to share in it more than the rest and that is our Blessed Mother, as I have already mentioned. There would be no Emmanuel without the Virgin’s consent. Just as there was a man and a woman in the Garden that said yes to sin under the tree, so too would there be a man and a woman consenting to grace under the tree when it came to restoring what was broken. Jesus is the one mediator and everything flows from his sacrifice, but nevertheless he allows us to all share in it, and we can see that the Blessed Mother does so in a very profound way.

She is there to say “yes” to Gabriel when asked if she would take on this responsibility to raise the Son of God, she was there in Bethlehem (BREAD) by the manger (ALTAR) when she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, she was there when he was presented in the temple (and a sword began to pierce her heart), she was there at the Wedding Feast of Cana (interceding for us), and finally she was under the tree watching her son give his life for all.

We cannot praise this woman enough for her sacrifices, her faith, and even her love of us. Let us not forget the role the Immaculate Virgin plays during our Advent journey and most of all Christmas day. We journey ourselves to Bethlehem so that we will see Christ lying in the manger, it was Mary who made that journey first so that we too could make it now. In this last week of preparing for the Lord of our own going up to Bethlehem we need to make that journey along with our Blessed Mother, to leave her out of the preparation is to leave out a necessary part that God himself choose for us, and that is Mary’s motherhood of all the faithful. She is there with us, the way we recognize her is to ponder her own life in our hearts. People will do so by praying the rosary, novenas, or some other type of devotion. It should not be considered outdated or something pre-Vatican II, to pray rosaries, novenas, or other types of devotions to our Blessed Lady, since Vatican II itself called Mary, “Mediatrix, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Advocate.” (C.f. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, nn61-62).

We cannot be a community without her, it’s impossible; she is part of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15 which comes to fulfillment once she says “yes” to the angel Gabriel. And from there she is part of every major community movement in the Church, especially during the end of Jesus’ life and the beginning of the Church. We are not isolated from those who have gone before us, they are with us through grace and Mary continues to help us during our journey, she helped her own son, why would she not help us? And finally, Christ never stops giving us gifts, and besides salvation itself he gave us the most precious thing in his life, his own mother from the foot of his cross. “Son, behold your mother, Woman, behold your son.” By Fr. John Picinic

Liturgy of the Hours

Liturgy of the Hours

VESPERS Evening Prayer

St. Joseph's Church

Friday, December 17th @ 7:00pm

Please come out and join us in keeping the day holy. A most excellent prayer especially for reflection as we continue our journey through Advent to Christmas.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

3rd Sunday of Advent

In today’s Gospel it is not just John the Baptist who asks, “Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another?” It is all of us who have asked that question of Jesus, “Are you really the One?” We ask that question because we want assurance that what we believe in is true and good, but we also ask because of weakness. Jesus, however, is very patience with us in our hardness of heart, in our weakness, and even in our sinfulness. He responds to us the same way he responded to John the Baptist, “the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, etc.” If you notice the response is not an argument on theology, philosophy, or culture, but rather it is based on the greatest of theological virtues, it is based on love.

As we journey through Advent we are invited to live like John the Baptist, to be heralds of the Good News, and to be like Jesus in our bringing the free gifts of healing to others.

Many times people will come to me and express concern that their children or some other close relation no longer attends Church and they want to know what they need to do bring them back. The people who have “left” the Church or have put Church practice on the back burner usually do so because they too have asked the question, “Are you the one who is to come or do we wait for another.” The problem was, is that the question was not sufficiently answered. One may be thinking at this point, “I am not responsible for someone else’s decision to stop practicing that is on them alone.” Someone else asked that question a long time ago as well, he said, “Lord, am I my brother’s keeper?” You bet we are.

The most important part to a person’s ontological question is their inner search and longing for the Christ. The question is answered by our actions first. Words are important, but not as much as actions. The old saying, “Actions speak louder than words” is still true and most effective.

The people who brought me the Gospel, parents, friends, confreres, helped me to see it and live it by what I saw in them, their untiring and joyous disposition of faith and charity practiced on a daily basis.

Even a person like St. Augustine who craved intellectual proofs was in the end persuaded by the actions and life of his mother, St. Monica and by St. Ambrose who so eloquently and courageously defended the faith against those who were trying to destroy it.

Before any discussion on theology can take place there has to be in us a courageous and lively faith, one that can be clearly seen and understood, in order that our lives will be the seed, the water, and the sun for the conversion of others, as St. Paul puts so beautifully wrote way back when in his 1st letter to the Corinthians, and God will provide the growth.

What is also required is patience, for many times conversion or a return to the Church takes time, God forces no one and the process is a journey. The second reading from James instructs us to be patient in all things especially with one another.

In this third week of advent we continue our wait for the Lord, we also continue to wait on others to return home and join us. Some will return on Christmas many who have not been to Church in a while; we need to show them that they belong. It will not happen by a theological treatise we give on the Eucharist, the Blessed Mother, sin, etc., but rather it will happen by what they see. If they see the lame get up and walk, the blind given their sight, the dead raised to new life, then they will return. Bring Christ to everyone in your very persons.

Fr. John

2nd Sunday of Advent

Today we begin the 2^nd week of Advent. We hear in the Gospel of Matthew that John the Baptist preaches, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” This second week is also dedicated to, “preparing ourselves to meet Jesus.”

We wait for Jesus to be born on Christmas, the day he enters into human history. We also await his glorious second coming which will usher in that new kingdom, one where there is no more pain or sorrow, but perfect happiness in God and in one another.

Yet, we still journey here and our preparation continues. The question that often comes up is, “How do I prepare?”

Well, we know how we prepare for the holidays. We save money so that we can go out and buy gifts for the one’s we love. This takes a lot of work, literally, by actually making an income and saving it prudently, and also by going out and shopping for gifts. That can drive a person mad. Then there is the preparation to prepare, for instance, “when will I go shopping, where will I go, and how long do I want to invest in that, etc.”

The Christian life should be no different. We need to put in time; we need to “save,” so that we will find the best gifts, the best discounts, etc. The principles are the same, what you put in is what you will get out. “Some seed produced 30, 60, or 100 fold.”

But getting back to the question of how we should prepare, the first and most important thing in any Christian life is “Truth.” Truth about self. Part of being in relationship with God, part of preparing to receive Him is that we look into ourselves first and be honest with ourselves.

This is very hard, because sometimes the Truth hurts. No one likes to look inside and see darkness of sin, weakness, foibles, addictions, and the whole gamut of vice.

John the Baptist yells out loud if not screams at us to, “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.” Before we can produce good fruit we need to repent and repentance means looking deep within and dealing with what’s there. The problem is that with sin it sometimes becomes so engrained in us we think we are doing nothing wrong. But deep down inside we know there is a problem, but we build walls around it and we come up with all kinds of reasons to justify behavior even destructive behavior. All sin is addictive, or at least has the potential to become so.

Sinful behavior is not easy to deal with, for it demands honesty and then demands something even further, “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.”

Am I preaching to the choir? We already come to Church, we haven’t done anything that bad, please father don’t talk about sins, cheer us up. I will, but before that we need to acknowledge something, and that something is that yes we are the choir, because we are all sinners. We are not all in the same place, but we all are looking for healing.

Advent you see is not simply the nice trees, and believe-you me, I love the decorations, the caroling, the food, the presents, but it is also more than that, it is a time of coming clean. Why wouldn’t we want to be made clean by the Lord? Again, I know it’s very hard, but the Lord desires it for us. We will only be as sick as our secrets.

Part of the preparation for Catholics is the sacrament of reconciliation. It is a place to be made clean. Once a person decides not to go to confession, that is already an admission of guilt, one in which the person deceives themselves in thinking they are not a sinner.

John the Baptist was accepted by some and rejected by others. Those who rejected him refused to look inside and deal with the darkness, and there they remained. There were others who accepted what he said and made it a reality in their lives, they decided to be washed that day but too also continue washing themselves in God’s love, and that takes hard work, first and foremost it requires Truth, and it requires it always, anything else is a lie and from the father of lies.

John the Baptist is speaking, yelling out to us, he is coming out from the desert and hollering, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand . . . Prepare the way of the Lord . . . (and) produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.” John is standing waiting for us by the water. Let us go to meet him, for we are children of Truth, we are Christians.

Fr. John