Thursday, September 2, 2021

VIRGIN MARY AND OUR LIFE JOURNEY

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. 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?” 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.

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