Word to the Wise
Saturday, September 8, 2012 - Sept. 8 - The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
[Micah 5:1-4a or Rom 8:28-30 and Matt 1:1-16, 18-23 or 1:18-23,707]We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
When I was pastor of St. Ann Parish in San Antonio, TX, there was a statue of St. Ann in the front yard of the rectory which showed her as a mom with a young (9-10 yr old) daughter. Of course, the daughter is Mary. Furthermore, the windows in the church showed a sequential "life of Mary" beginning with her birth. But we rarely see Mary as anything but a young woman - thirty-something - in our images. I have never heard of any of the popular "apparitions" such as Fatima, Lourdes, Medugorje, etc. speaking of her as elderly or a teenager or an infant! By the time Jesus died, she would have been considered elderly by the culture of the day. At the time of her "call" in Nazareth, she would have been considered of marriageable age, but that meant teens in those days. But I don't see too many "annunciation" scenes in which I would say she is shown as a teenager!
Today we are challenged to see Mary as a baby! She was born just the way we are born with all the pain and struggle that any mother endures (there were no epidurals back then!). Can we offer her to young girls as one like them at various points in their lives? I know that when we celebrate a birthday, we celebrate the current one and not all the past ones (thank goodness). But given our tendency to wrap Mary in all kinds of costumes and cultures, I wonder if we could take a break from all that and just see her as a beautiful baby girl born to a couple. It is the fact that she was BORN that unites her to us! AMEN