The Gift

Thursday, December 8th, 2022

December tends to be the busiest month of the year, but beneath the advertising, shopping, tinsel, and Christmas trees, there is a profound stillness.

The Christ child is sleeping in the arms of his mother. The silence that gathers around them ushers in a new world.

Mary is not aware of this, but we who have the benefit of hindsight know how this child will change humanity.

But what of his mother?

How will this birth change her?

How does her life affect us?

Although the writers of the Gospels don’t stay with Mary, there are a few scenes we can put together.

In sequence, they reveal not only Mary’s life, but also our own.

Mary’s “yes” to God is also ours.

Remember how bewildered she was?

She was young and didn’t know what the angel meant.

We, too, were young.

Maybe there was hesitation. Uncertainty. Were we doing the right thing?

It felt right, but some people might laugh at us, and call us “Jesus freaks.”

However, we also knew good people who have God in their lives, and we trusted them.

In the end, it was about us.

We had a “yes” inside us, and that’s what we said.

Male or female, we became pregnant with God, in our own way giving birth to Christ in the world.

In the Gospels, the next time we see Mary, Jesus is twelve, an important time for a young Jew.

Mary and Joseph realise he is missing and are concerned.

Jesus is with a group of learned Jewish men, listening to their teachings.

What does that say to us? Do we have times when we seek to broaden and deepen our spirituality? Or, conversely, do we get anxious when someone close to us is seeking religious information elsewhere?

I laugh at this. My own children are “seekers.”

I also laugh that Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding feast, providing a great amount of wine for people who had probably had enough.

It was Mary who insisted that her son perform this first miracle at a wedding feast.

What a wonderful beginning to his ministry!

How do I celebrate the love of family and friends? Have to think about that.

There is only a brief mention of Mary in the rest of Jesus’ ministry.

We next see her in what must have been the worst time of her life – her son’s crucifixion.

One of the gospels places her at a distance, but in another, Jesus is talking to her from the cross. There would have been a lot of crowd noise, so she must have been close to him,

She would have felt his pain.

His agony would be hers.

We think of our own times of loss, and suffering empties us. It seems as though we, too, are dead in a tomb.

I think of loss in my own life. I’m old enough to understand that projecting blame, anger, and bitterness, keeps us stuck in the tomb.

Resurrection will come, and what is resurrected in us will be greater than what has died.

After Jesus’ resurrection, there is no mention of Mary, but if your read between the lines, she was there.

Jesus appeared to Mary Magdala and his disciples. He appeared in rooms and on roads.

He cooked fish on a beach for his friends.

But where was he staying?

I think he was with his mother.

Mary’s name comes up again in the Acts of the apostles. She is in the upper room at Pentecost.

Yes, Pentecost!

From the birth of her son to the birth of the Church, Mary has been an instrument of God.

We think of that this December.

Under all the layers of wrapping, this is the true Christmas gift.

Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator. Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.