The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Model for Spiritual Growth

Homily for the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God (January 1st, 2012)

READINGS:
First Reading: Numbers 6:22-27
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8
Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7
Gospel: Luke 2:16-21

FOCUS: Mary teaches us about how to respond to God’s vocation in our lives. 
FUNCTION: Imitate Mary’s contemplative example of prayer to achieve spiritual growth.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Model for Spiritual Growth

          Well, we’ve made it!  2011 is (nearly) over and we now stand on the threshold of 2012, a whole new calendar year: a year of new opportunities and possibilities, a year to make better choices than we did last year, a year to celebrate the hope that we have for the future.  For so many people (and for so many of us), a new year brings with it new hope.  Many people choose to make a “New Year’s Resolutions.”  Some might say, “This year, I’m going to eat more healthy food,” or “This year, I want to exercise more and stay in better shape,” or “This year, I want to devote more time to prayer and works of charity,” or “This year, I’m going to try harder to get along with the difficult people in my life.”  Certainly there are many more resolutions that people might make.  And some people might even make more than one if they’re feeling ambitious and motivated.    

          How about a simple show of hands?  Alright, raise your hand if you’ve already come up with a New Year’s Resolution.  OK, very nice.  Some of us have a New Year’s Resolution in mind, and some of us are still thinking.  It’s easy to find plenty of articles and stories and tips online about making New Year’s Resolutions.  But since we’re all here in Church on New Year’s Day, let’s consider what the Church proposes for how we should celebrate the New Year, because there’s a lot of wisdom to be gained from the Church’s perspective.     

          The first thing we should notice is that, every January 1^st, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.  It’s the same every year: January 1^st will always be the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.  In this way, the Church tells us at the beginning of every year, “Do you want to celebrate the New Year appropriately?  Look to Mary!  Do you want to make a change in your life this year?  Look to Mary!  Do you want to become a better, more virtuous person this year?  Look to Mary!” 

          But why do we or should we look to Mary so often?  Why does the Church celebrate so many Marian feast days over the course of the year?  Why does the Church always hold up Mary as the model for us to imitate?  It’s because she always…without fail…leads us to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!  And since the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christmas with an octave (a single celebration extended over a period of eight days), it’s only fitting that on the eighth day we should honor the Mother of Jesus our Savior: Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, the “handmaid of the Lord” that God the Father chose and blessed, among all women, to be the mother of His only-begotten Son.

          And so here on the threshold of 2012, we look to Mary for our inspiration and our model as we move forward into the New Year.  Here’s one New Year’s Resolution we might consider making in regard to our faith: “This year, I will focus on how I can continue to grow in the spiritual life.”  And what a beautiful example and model of continual spiritual growth we have in Mary, the Mother of God!

          The Gospel for today gives us one simple sentence…one simple verse so worthy of our consideration and imitation: “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  In this one simple verse, we gain a small glimpse into the interior, spiritual life of Mary, the Mother of God.  At her deepest core, Mary was a contemplative.  She wasn’t someone who just went through life without thinking and reflecting on things.  No, just the opposite: throughout her life, she constantly reflected on what God was doing both in and through her and in and through her only Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the One destined to be the world’s Savior and Redeemer.  Mary had a deep and rich interior prayer life.  It was there, in the inner recesses of her Immaculate Heart, that she treasured what God was doing in the world and reflected on how God was active in her life.

          We might call this kind of prayer “theological reflection,” a discipline that involves a concentrated examination of life, through prayer, to see and understand how God is at work.  God is living and moving and active in the world, and if our prayer is going to be fruitful and if we want to grow spiritually, we need to be able to see and understand how God is at work in our lives.  Theological reflection is really a matter of living our lives with eyes of faith. 

          So we might ask ourselves: do we make seeing and understanding how God is at work in our lives a priority?  Are we on the lookout for God’s activity?  Are we looking at our lives with eyes of faith?  How we answer those questions will determine to what extent our spiritual lives grow in 2012.  Mary’s example gives us a kind of “game plan” for spiritual growth in the New Year.

          Let me detail for you some elements of that game plan.  First, we have to be in relationship with God through prayer to see how God is at work in our lives.  Offering a brief prayer to God in the morning (or sometime near the beginning of our day) is a good practice: “God, please give me eyes to see You today.  Help me to be mindful of the ways in which You are at work in the midst of my daily life.”  Secondly, we have to go through our day believing and trusting that God is always present to us: while paying bills, while doing dishes, while taking care of kids, while working in the office, while working outside, while we eat, and so on.           

Third, we have to allow ourselves to be present to God.  This also involves prayer, and spending at least some time during the day for silence and reflection, allowing our hearts and minds to be present to God who is present to us.  And fourth, we might conclude with the “examen of consciousness,” a prayer developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola as a way to find God in all things and to cooperate more fully with His grace.  It’s a practical examination of the day where we prayerfully examine the ways in which we either responded or failed to respond to God’s grace in our lives.  A simple search online would allow you to find out more information about the “examen of consciousness” prayer. 

          Doing these very practical things could make a big difference for our spiritual growth in 2012.  Not only that, it could also help us live our vocation more fully or help us understand what vocation God is calling us to.  Mary, the Mother of God, gives us a beautiful example of responding graciously to the vocation that God has planned for us.  And since we’re beginning the Vocations Crucifix Program this weekend in the parishes of our Spires of Faith cluster, now is an excellent time to follow Mary’s example of prayer so that we, too, might respond more fully (or for the first time) to our God-given vocation.

          And so as we stand here on the threshold of 2012, let us pray to Holy Mary, the Mother of God, that she might help us grow in our spiritual lives, find God in the midst of daily life, and truly live our vocation, as together we pray:

          “Hail, Mary….”