What is the Lord promising in 2017?
Celebrating the Mother of God in the New Year
Num 6: 22-27; Gal 4: 4-7; Lk 2:16-21
We celebrate a triple feast today: the birth of a brand new year, Mary - Mother of God and the World day of Peace! On this auspicious day, we have something that the Lord promises us - again a triple promise: Blessing, Grace and Peace, as we listened to in the first reading.
BLESSING: The Lord promises first of all, Blessings. How do we understand blessing? The antonym is a curse, that is wishing the destruction of someone. Blessing therefore is wishing that something good happens to the other. The Lord wishes that we receive, experience all that is good. Sometimes we may think that the Lord fails to send anything good our way. Blessings abound when waiting is long. Let me share with you a forward that I enjoyed recently on a social network. There was a dog and an elephant which got pregnant together. In 60 days the dog delivered some ten puppies! It got pregnant again and delivered another 10 in 60 days...then again...and after half a dozen such cycles, the dog happened to meet the elephant. The elephant was still go around with the first baby in gestation. The dog laughed at the elephant and asked, "did you check if you are really pregnant? I have already given birth to some sixty kids. Look at you!" The elephant with a solemn smile said, "when I deliver my kid, he would draw everyone's attention. When he crosses the road, everyone will stop in awe. When he stops and turns around humans would run for their life." The longer the wait, the greater the blessing! The Lord has great things in store for us. Let us never get impatient and frustrated. Even amidst the toughest darkness, we need to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord and wait on the Lord with faith! The Lord promises blessing and they will surely come our way!
GRACE: The second promise is Grace. What greater witness than the Mother of God, Mary who was called 'full of grace'. Understanding grace is another task we have today. What is grace? -Is grace a thing? an intention answered? a healing?...No. This is the misunderstanding we have when we speak of more graces and less graces, as if we count or weigh graces on scales. Grace is fundamentally the presence of God with us, the relationship that God establishes with us, the way that God enters our ordinary lives! That is why Mary was full of Grace: she bore the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the Word made flesh, God made human in her womb. Mother of God, is what God made her! Theotokos - the bearer of God. In the fullness of time, God sent God's only son, born of a woman, declares St. Paul in the second reading. Why should God send God's Son? It is the way that God fulfilled God's own desire of being with God's people. I will be with you. I will never leave you; I will never forsake you nor forget you, my people! Wasn't that the promise that the Lord had given always?
PEACE: The third promise is Peace. Celebrating as a Church the 50th World Day of Peace, Pope Francis gives us the following theme: Non-Violence: a style of politics for peace. Non Violence is a time tested weapon of global well being. Meeting violence with violence would mean accelerating the destruction of the world and humanity. Just two days ago there was a tensed moment when the US expelled the Russian diplomats alleging that they interfered in the Presidential Elections. The Russian Foreign Ministry wanted to expel the US diplomats in a tit for tat reaction. But wisdom prevailed when the Russian President Putin declared against it. He did not stop with that he invited the American Children in Russia for a Christmas Celebration too! Not a move to extol him and all his policies, but this responsible act of this world leader is a clear sign of non violence, a proactive pursuit of good will. The Holy Father expresses concern over a quasi world war being fought in piecemeal, all over the world today. He says over 50 nations are involved in some form of war! The Prince of Peace is with us - the Son of God who has come into the world, pleading us to love, embrace and grow together towards fullness of life - only peace can do that. The Lord alone can give us that peace!
Blessing, Grace and Peace - that is what the Lord is promising in 2017. Let us claim that promise for ourselves, for our families and for the entire world.
The Lord BLESS you and keep you;
The Lord make his face shine upon you and be GRACIOUS to you;
The Lord lift his countenance upon you and give you PEACE!
Amen.