GREAT EXPECTATIONS

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Last Sunday the Church entered a new year of worship, which began with the Season of Advent. This season is given to us to enable us to prepare ourselves to worthily celebrate the birth of our Lord on the solemn feast of Christmas. Children can be excellent teachers in displaying the spirit of joyful expectation as they look forward to the wonderful gifts they will receive on Christmas Day. We, too, should see Christmas as a time when we are all given a great gift, namely, God’s only begotten Son to become our Savior.

Actually, the Advent spirit of great expectation should characterize our entire life as Christians. As we recall Christ’s first coming two thousand years ago, we look forward to his second coming -- his glorious and triumphant return at the end of time to complete his work of salvation.

If there is one person who can teach us to live the spirit of Advent better than children, it is Mary, the mother of the Redeemer. As she carried Jesus in her womb, she understood better than anyone what it meant to wait with great expectation for his birth.  Mary is not only the Virgin Mother of Jesus, she is also his first disciple, the first among saints, and the Mother of the Church, which is Christ's mystical body. With this in mind, when I was installed as Bishop of Brownsville on August 6, 1995 I placed the Church in the Valley under Mary's maternal care and protection.

Let us consider what we can learn from Mary about waiting for salvation.  Most of us live our lives in obscurity, without any public prominence or power. Our lives are spent in the shadows, so to speak. This, too is how Mary lived, yet she knew contentment of heart because she placed complete trust in God to send a Savior to save the people, even though, until the Angel Gabriel came to her, she had no idea exactly how or when he would do that. All she knew was what God had promised and that was good enough for her. This is the serene and confident faith that should characterize our lives, as well.

Mary possessed other virtues besides faith, and her example can inspire us today. First, Mary was innocent. Innocence is a rare and powerful virtue. It is not the failure to imagine evil; it is the result of rejecting it. It is the absence of the desire to do harm, inflict pain, or seek revenge. It is a purity of life, thought, and intention. It results from a decision to seek the truth in life rather than greatness or importance.

Mary teaches us to be patient in enduring suffering and sorrow. She was able to embrace the fallen world into which she was born and, without being stained by it, she was able to mourn the sins of the world.  Recall how Mary endured the crucifixion and death of her son. She stood at the foot of his cross and absorbed his pain into herself. She did not allow rage to harden her heart. She did not seek vengeance. What Mary did was to lift her heart to God. Modern women and men can learn from her to entrust the burden of their despair, emptiness, and brokenness to God, knowing that no human consolation is adequate, only the consolation of God.

Mary also teaches us how to be constant in prayer. Even after her Son rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, she did not rest, as though the work of redemption was complete. No, she entered into constant prayer with the Apostles and other followers of Jesus and prayed for the Holy Spirit to come, to empower the Church to carry on her son’s saving activity.

We all suffer in life, and there is a tendency to focus too much on suffering and to think it is the true nature of life. But for the Christian, the true nature of life is triumph, and Mary is, again, the model. Triumph is not triumphalism. It is not strutting, or placing ourselves above others. It is the celebration of the victory of good over evil, of truth over illusion, of peace over war. It is the exultation of God who casts out sin, vanquishes death, makes us one, and gives us a share in his own eternal life.

Mary is also a model of courage. In assenting to becoming the mother of the Redeemer, Mary decided on a course no one else would understand, only God. She knew unkind questions would arise over her being found with child, since she had no husband as yet, but she chose to be intent on God's will, and on serving him alone.

Finally, Mary is a model of self-surrender to God. She did this in a most simple yet outstanding way, by uttering words that have become for all Christians the model of self-surrender to God, in great expectation of wonderful things to come: "I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38).

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 11-Jan-2010 8:22 sitemap