Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,
You
are preparing spiritually to celebrate the nativity of Virgin Mary. It is a
good practice to reflect upon the life of Mother Mary through different talks,
meditation and prayer. The more we come to know the more we love our Lady. This
will surly help you to strengthen your relationship with mother.
John's
19:25-27
At the foot of the Cross, it was John, Mary (mother of
Jesus), Mary’s sister (Salome), Mary (wife of Clopas) and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he
loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman,[b] here is your son,” 27 and
to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
According to the gospel passage it was Jesus' duty as a
responsible son to entrust his mother to somebody safe and sound. If Jesus
would have other brother and sister he would have entrusted to them but not to
John. Jesus looked both the side and saw his mother Mary and the disciple John.
In the Gospel we read Jesus saw the disciple whom he loved. It is not that the
Disciple who loved Jesus.
I believe we all are loved by Jesus, that's why we are here
today. In the gospel of Jn 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, Jn 6: 37 All those the Father gives
me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his
sheep.
For the
love of the Church Jesus even dies on the cross. This is the true love that Jesus shows for
his loved ones. There is no grater love than any one who lays down his life for
his friends.
and the last message from the cross for all the disciples
whom Jesus loves is this "Here is your Mother"
and we read from this hours the disciple took her in to his home.
It is the duty of every disciple, it is the duty of you and
me to take mother Mary into our home, family in our lives. Because if we love
Jesus we must follow his commandment. We should accept mother Mary as our own
mother and as the good Christian model to be followed.
In the other passage we read, the angel Gabriel came to Mary
and gave five promises during the visitation.
1. you will
bear a son and He will be grate
2. He will be
called son of God the Most High
3. The Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor
David
4. He will reign over the house of
Jacob forever
5. his kingdom there will be no end.
These were five promises made to Virgin Mary and Mary said I
am the handmaid of the Lord, let it happen according to God's will and she
accepted it. We see in the bible from the day she accepted the will of God in
her life she had to go through all kinds of sufferings, all kinds of
loneliness, rejections at the end she is standing at the foot of cross on mount
calvary.
Mother Mary started her
life after those five promises made to
her. At the foot of Jesus she might have remembered all the promises.
1. He will be grate :
looking at his son on the cross she could feel Jesus is going to die, he is
wounded, he is insulted, he was flocked and angel said he will be great.
2. He will be called
the son of most high God: But now everybody calling him
criminal.
3. He
will reign over the house of Jacob forever: He
is not going to reign he is going to die now.
4. The
Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David: now he is lying of the cross.
Mother
Mary might have remembered all the promises Angel Gabriel gave to her.
Just
imagine if you were in the place of mother Mary ....
All the
promises was shuttered nothing was
fulfilled on the cross. Mother Mary Looking at the cross she might have felt
God has cheated her. She could have denied God. she could have proclaimed God
and angel cheated me. I belied them but they cheated me. there is no god, could
have accused God and proclaimed as we do in the time of difficulties but she
did not do that. She was called to fulfil the will of God not her own.
Mother
Mary had spiritual strength to come to from Calvary experience to the upper
room. Mother Mary gathered all scattered
disciples, we read in Act 1: 12-14
12 Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from
the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. 13 When they
arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those
present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and
Matthew; James son of Alpheus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in
prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with
his brothers.
Mother Mary gathered all the scattered disciples and praying
together. In the time of difficulties mother is with them.
You have started your journey believing and trusting in the
lord, you believed that God called you, you responded to his call, after you
joined and finally professed sometimes you might have felt everything was in
vain, your promise and expectations had no meaning. You might have also
experienced the situation which in your life time never expected. You might have been rejected, your proposal,
your ideas may not have been accepted, facing all these situations you may feel
standing at the foot of cross like Mother Mary.
The Lord wants to give us a message through mother Mary. Mother
Mary is the first Christian and if all
these things had happened to her then these things must happen to us too. We all have to go through Calvary experience.
Where all our dreams and expectations will be shuttered, we will be tested, our
faith will be tested only then we come to know whether we have strong faith in
God. A faith not tested need not be a strong faith.
In the Gospel of John 6:5-6 we read. 5 When Jesus looked up and
saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He
asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to
do. The momentary struggle we face in life is to test our faith
because Jesus already has in mind what he is going to do.
Same thing happened to mother Mary, but she was not perplexed
rather went to the upper room. upper room is to go to pray. There is a beautiful
passage in the bible from the book of Sirach 39:16
"All the works of the Lord is very good and
whatever he commands will be done at appointed time. when the appointed time
comes all that he has commanded will happen".
There are lots of promises in the bible and not a single
promise will go in vain. Because the Lord says in Isaiah
55: 11
so My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it
will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.”
Suffering and crisis are supposed to happen in every Christians
lives but we should not waver. The word of God should be in our heart. but the
problem is, our heart is filled with people's word, words of news, words of
office work except word of God. Mother Mary was never distressed because “... Mary treasured up all these things and
pondered them in her heart.” Lk 2: 19
We are forgetting the bible, forgetting the word of God when
crisis come. from mount Calvary/ or sad experience we are unable to come to upper
room/ pray. Unless we go to the upper room God is not going to direct us.
We can
see the promises come to fulfilment only when we have patience. Mother Mary waited
not one or two days but almost 33years.
Mother
Mary is the Help of Christians. She never abandons her children. The struggle
we face today is well known to our Mother. Lets come to her and pray through
her intersession for oneself and for the needy and our prayer will never be
unheard. Let give place to mother Mary in our life and follow her to follow
Jesus more closely. Amen.
