Happy New Year

It's cloudy outside today.  The temperature is just above freezing, ensuring that there is rain falling and not snow.  The past two days have brought rain and a fair amount of fog which has hampered travel plans for many (myself included) who may have been planning to arrive at our destinations on the wing.

Having said this, a certain degree of inginuity was called for (and a pair of very generous parents, who agreed to ferry me and a fellow priest back to our home city yesterday), but not before the vigil Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God would have been already celebrated.

Here then, is my reflection for this feast day:

Right from the start
Happy New Year! Thanks to Father Brian's generosity, I was able to spend an extra day or two with my family, and I tried to get here in time for last evening's Mass, but unfortunately the fog was hampering all efforts for the planes to land. As it turns out, I found a number of other people in the airport who I knew (and that's a rare feat these days), and we were all trying to come back home for New Year's Eve, but none of us could get here aboard a flight, so we all had to find other means of transportation. While all this was going on, Father Sharpe graciously agreed to preside at the vigil Mass that was celebrated yesterday. Some would say that it was providence that allowed the oldest priest in the diocese to preside at the last Mass of the calendar year 2010, before a not-so-old priest would arrive for the first Mass of 2011.


A new year is always a time for starting afresh, and the liturgy focuses our attention today on the person of Mary, the Mother of God. Throughout our history, Mary has always occupied a place of honor in the life of the Church. Even among the apostles she has enjoyed pride of place, perhaps because she was the first to show us how to listen to the voice of God, and the promptings of the spirit as guides for our lives. Isn't that the life of a disciple: listen for the voice of our celestial guide, and follow in His way?

The gospel passage proper for today's Mass places us with Mary and her betrothed in the stable in Bethlehem. Even as they are still gazing themselves upon the face of their divine son, their first visitors arrive. These are not the majestic bearers of great earthly treasure; they would come later. No, the first visitors were the shepherds, the ones who lived as outcasts, the ones who tended the herds in the fields not far away, the ones who society looked down upon. This little group of humans had all heard messages from heaven; perhaps the animals too had had their own encounters with angels. What then was running through their minds? Strangers who had never before met each other were brought together for this first gathering around the manger. Even as a little child, Jesus was bringing people together and calling the not-so-well-to-do crowd to stand up, to believe that they too have something worth saying, whether the world would listen or not.

The scriptures tell us that Mary treasured these things, and pondered them in her heart. We too should follow her lead. This is the time to start (if we need to get started). All around us, every day, there are things worth pondering. All around us, every day, there are signs of blessings being given to us, not always with the formula of blessing spoken in today's first reading, but moments of grace sent our way by the same child who once summoned shepherds to herald his birth. Saint Paul tells us in the second reading today that we are all children of God. Can you even begin to imagine the significance of such a title? In another age, only the children of royalty were entitled to the privileges accorded to the royalty, only the children of the nobility could ever hope to enjoy the life that was accorded to the well-to-do, but Jesus changed all that. He came to this earth in order to show us that we are ALL called to a place of privilege because we are all his sons and daughters, and we receive this high calling not because of a birthright by happenstance. Rather we are all entitled through the grace of our baptism.

The gift of our spiritual birthright is announced to us today as it was announced to the shepherds: by angels. If we have the eyes of faith to see, and if we allow our hearts to welcome such good news, we too will ponder these things in our hearts, and we'll be all the richer for it.