THE WORD AND THE FEAST

Destined, Chosen and Shared glory with

8th September, 2015

Rom 8: 28-30;Mt 1:18-23

The Birthday of our Blessed Mother brings home to us the message of being chosen from all eternity - as St. Paul affirms in Eph 1:4 - God has chosen you before the foundation of the world. God chose Mary from eternity and prepared her to be the worthy dwelling place for God's Son. That is why the Angel greeted her with those significant words: 'Hail! Full of Grace!' She, who was so full of Grace and who bore the fullness of Grace within her, becomes for us the bearer of grace. She was destined and chosen and God deigned to share with her God's glory.  

Her role as the destined and chosen one, reminds each of us our status as chosen children destined to share in the glory of the Lord. When she was born, the climax of God's salvation plan was born. Her greatness lies in the fact that she cooperated with God and it was that trait which led her to the glory that she shares with the Lord today. Everyone of us is called to that same glory and we are faced with the same demand: that we cooperate with the Lord in the eternal plan, where we have a specific and irreplaceable role to play.

The scourge of the world today remains the fact that it has lost the sense of the eternal. All that matters is the here and the now, the immediate and the instant differences that people look for. This is the tendency that leads to evaluating a  person in terms of usefulness, looking at everything from the point of view of gain or loss and judging everything with the criterion of utility.  Gender bias and gender issues that are prevalent today are because of such immature approaches to life. Celebrating the Girl Child day today, is another fitting moment to appraise the type of attitudes we sport towards humanity, whether they are holistic or not, helpful or not, balanced or not, in short - truly Christ-like or not.

Let this feast of our Blessed Mother bring health to our mind and body, to our spirit and soul, that we may be fully alive, sharing and spreading the glory of God - that is what we are chosen for and that is what we are destined for! Praised be the Lord. Ave Maria!