The Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, Monday, January 1, 2024

Luke 2:16–21

The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them. When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

The Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary began to be celebrated locally as a feast in scattered places in Europe beginning in the 1700’s.  This feast was only extended to the Church throughout the world in 1931 by Pope Pius XI.  At this time it was set on October 11.  With the reform of the Church calendar in 1969, it was set on January 1, replacing the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord.

The Gospel reading for this Mass, from St. Luke, recounts the visit of the shepherds to the stable in or just outside of Bethlehem after their vision of the angels singing the praise of the new-born King.  Luke tells us that this occurred at night.  He does not tell us how many shepherds came to the stable, but it could not have been very many.  Scattered groups of shepherds with their flocks would have come together as the sun began to set so that the sheep could be gathered in one central place and a number of shepherds could have taken turns watching over them and sleeping.  The fact that at least some of these shepherds went off to Bethlehem in the middle of the night, across the countryside, speaks to the power of the vision they had received.  The land was rough and rocky, and predators prowled about freely at night, as well as robbers.  Walking at night, unless the moon was full, would have worsened these dangers.  Nor had the Angel who spoke to them given them much direction for the stable.  It could have been located on the other side of the town miles away.  The stable itself was likely one of the small caves or clefts in the rocky hills outside the town, which would have proven difficult to identify even in the daylight.

And yet the shepherds found them.  What was the object of their search?  What did they go to so much trouble to see? “A Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2, 11-12).  In fact, they did not know who this Child was, except that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  The words “savior” and “the anointed one” — “Christ” — would not have meant much to these outsiders.  It was the appearance of the angels that convinced them to make this journey.  And the only significance for them of the swaddling clothes and the manger was that the Angel had foretold these to them.  Their simple faith in the word of the angel, which echoes the faith of Mary in the words of Gabriel and stands in contrast to the lack of faith in Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, brought them to the crude cradle of the One who would open the gates of heaven for them.

“They made known the message that had been told them about this child.”  Certainly Mary and Joseph would have been surprised, if not alarmed, by the approach of the shepherds.  The shepherds, however, had come in wonder and they recounted, probably more than one of them speaking at a time, their encounter with the Angel.  Perhaps Mary and Joseph wondered if this was the same angel who had visited them.  We do not know how long the shepherds stayed.  They brought no gifts, and Joseph could not have had much to offer them by way of hospitality.  After telling those who were there what they had seen and heard while tending their flocks, they may have lingered for a bit but then returned.  They still had their flocks to watch over.  But their account had its effect: “All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds.”  Now, it is not clear what Luke meant by “all who heard it”.  Luke only tells us that Mary and Joseph were in the stable with the Baby.  The apocryphal Proto-Gospel of James says that as soon as Joseph and Mary had taken refuge in the stable, Joseph went off in search of a midwife, and he met a woman on the road who agreed to help.  They arrived in time to see a bright light glow in the stable and the Infant Jesus appear in the Virgin’s arms.  The midwife went away, convinced that she had seen a miraculous birth, and told her friend Salome about it when she met her on the road.  They both then returned there.  According to this account, then, there were at least a few people present besides the Holy Family when the shepherds arrived.  The main point for us, though, is that “all” who heard it, primarily meaning Mary and Joseph, were “amazed”.  That is, they “wondered” at their words.  This, coupled with the next verse, “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart”, reminds us that though Mary and Joseph had received divine revelation concerning this Child, they did not have a Gospel before them so that they could know all there was to know about God’s plan.  They could not have known, for instance, that the Son of God would be born in such abject surroundings.  But what they did know, and that which was confirmed for them by the shepherds, by Simeon and Anna, and by the Magi, must have given them much to ponder.  Chief among what they must have wondered was how they were to act in accordance with these miraculous events.  Their minds must have been dazzled by the brilliance of what God was doing with and through them.  But what they certainly did was to fulfill all that they were told to do.  Thus: “When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”  Joseph obeyed the injunction of the angel who had spoken to him and declared his paternity of the Child by naming him at the time of his circumcision, even as both Joseph and Mary knew that she was their Son’s only natural Parent.

We give thanks to God for the great gift he made to humanity in the conception of his Son in the womb of a woman, and of the woman in whom this was done.  May her answer to God through the Angel Gabriel, “Let it be done to me according to your word”, be our answer to him as well.