HOMILY FOR CAS STAFF MASS, SMC CRYPT

HOMILY FOR CAS STAFF MASS, SMC CRYPT

Why the reading for the Annunciation five days out from the Nativity. Everyone knows there are nine months between them, and a great deal of activity such as the Visitation, the Marriage of Joseph and Mary, the Birth and Naming of John the Baptist, the Journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and so on… Yet the Annunciation and the Nativity are inseparable because they are the double-feast of the Incarnation. Together this double-feast celebrates the greatest mystery of the relationship between God and humanity – that the Creator became creature, God became man, in order to raise man up to God, the made to the Maker. Though the Virgin held the maturing embryonic Christ in the pyx of her womb for nine months before finally exposing Him, as it were, like in Eucharistic exposition, for angels, shepherds, kings and priests to see, the nine months of the Incarnation are in a sense a single event of which the Annunciation and Nativity are just the bookends.

As we pray the Angelus together each day we briefly touch a few distinct moments in that months-long event. The angel declares and the Virgin consents, the Virgin consents and the Virgin conceives, the Word is made flesh and God dwells among men. So in Christ God takes upon Himself our humanity without in any way diminishing His divinity. In that process, several things are established or begun, greater than the bleakness of the dualists and pessimists, more wonderful than we dared imagine: God demonstrates for all time the inherent goodness of creation, of the material order, of the body and bodily life, for God could not be joined to that which was other than good and will himself remain in a human body for all eternity; God reveals that healing is possible for damaged human beings, including restoration of the image and likeness of God that they enjoyed before the fall, reintegration of personality, relationships and community that have been broken since the fall, and return to hat intimacy with God we knew in paradise; and God establishes that even more and better is possible for human beings, more and better than our unbroken, unfallen state, for by becoming one of us Christ enables us to be ‘divinised’ as it were, to be adopted into the family of God, to be not only healed but elevated.

The ancient fathers imagined creation hushed at the moment of the Annunciation. Adam and Eve are there, and all humanity waiting in Limbo for their release; the patriarchs and prophets, good women and men from of old, all stand around listening. So, too, the angels, the animals, the ecology, the lights of the firmament: even the sun and moon eavesdrop attentively. What will the woman say? Where the first Eve said No, I will not obey, I will not observe your divine commands, I will not serve, what will the New Eve say. Yes, I am God’s handmaid, I will obey, I will observe, I will serve. Creation bursts with an excitement greater than the pleasure of the crowds as the newlyweds come forth, greater than the cheering at a countdown to rocket lift-off or to New Year, greater than the pleasure taken in the arrival of any other good news. For Mary’s ‘yes’ is not just the yes of a faithful, humble, holy young woman: it is given on behalf of all humanity. Mary stood as spokesperson for creation, and willingly accepted God’s offer of re-creation.

This is important, because it says something fundamental about the nature of the relationship between God and humanity: that God’s love, invitation, redemption will never be forced, will always be free. God could simply have possessed Mary’s body. Or he could have taken human or other form without involving us at all. But He chose instead to invite our co-operation and to respect our freedom to say yes or no. And so Bld Paul VI dared to say that Mary did not become our Mother when Christ entrusted her to John, to the Church, for the cross, and entrusted us to her. No, he thought, it had happened much earlier. “With her generous fiat she became, through the working of the Spirit, the Mother of God, but also the Mother of the living…”¹ Her yes restored the right relationship between God and humanity: God inviting and we accepting, God directing and we obeying, God befriending and we loving back, all done in perfect freedom. Mary’s yes is not just a private offer of herself: she offers humanity, all bodily life, all creation, in a great yes to salvation, that is paradigmatic of how we all should relate to God.

There is so much more to say about the Marian yes, but let me conclude by noting its application to your lives of service. We all know the secular models of service: the public service, service industries, service with a smile. Often it’s given begrudgingly, or with a veneer of courtesy, but does not run deep. And that’s a whole lot better than rudeness. But when we engage in service in the Church we begin with the Marian model of divine service. Our Greek word for service is litougia. Our service is worship, is profession of faith, is self-offering. It declares our reverence for those we serve and for the One who created and re-creates them. And so it says the things that Mary says.

For that Marian yes that you speak, not just by your words but by your deeds, not just by your individual deeds but by your enduring presence and commitment, not just on your own part but on behalf of the Church and humanity, for that Marian yes of yours I say thank you with all my heart. As I’ve said elsewhere, this has been something of an annus horribilis for the Church, with the battles over marriage and euthanasia, the ongoing struggle for religious liberty, the humiliating failures exposed by the Royal Commission and our shame and sorrow at the little ones who were so hurt. In such a year or horrors I could not endure in leadership without such excellent collaborators as yourselves. Like the archangel you are God telling me to be not afraid and promising the Holy Spirit will overshadow us as He did at the Annunciation and at Pentecost. Thank-you my angels for saying serviam, I will serve. May God bless you and all your loved ones this Christmas and in the New Year of 2018.