The Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, Saturday, September 12, 2020

Galatians 4, 4-7

Brothers and sisters: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. As proof that you are sons, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir,  through God.

The feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary was instituted in 1684 by Pope Innocent XI in thanksgiving for the victory of the Christian forces under the Polish King John III Sobieski against those of the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Vienna the previous year.  The Ottoman Turks had pushed through the Balkans and most of Hungary up to the gates of Vienna.  Had the Turks won the battle, the whole of Europe would have fallen into Muslim hands.  Beginning with this battle, the Christians slowly pushed the Turks out of Europe until today they hold only a tiny corner of it.

The feast itself is concerned with the honor due the Blessed Virgin Mary’s name.  The Virgin, that is, herself renders honor to that name by her sanctity, and we honor the sanctity which we find reflected in her name.  The origin of the name which we know in English as “Mary” goes back to the Hebrew, where we find the sister of Moses named Miriam.  The name passed over time into the Aramaic and was common among Jewish women at the time of Jesus.  While nearly all Jewish names have a meaning in the 

Hebrew language,  the original meaning of “Miriam” remains unknown.  Some have thought it connected with the Hebrew word for “bitter”, mara, but the similarities between the two words may be merely coincidental.  With the transference of the name into the Latin “Maria”, Christian writers, especially of the medieval period, considered that it was connected with the word for “seas”, maria, and that the Virgin Mary was the “Star of the sea”, stella maris: Mary as the morning star leading us through the troubled waters of this life.  However, she herself gives a new meaning to this name through her holiness.  

The first reading for the Mass for this feast is taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.  The Galatian Christians were Gentile converts living in the center of Asia Minor.  The term “Galatia” does not refer to a city but to a region settled a few hundred years before by Gauls who had come over from Thrace.  Paul had spent some time among them and understood their culture and their particular needs as new Christians.  Throughout his letter, for instance, we find numerous references to the historicity and the physicality of the Lord Jesus, which stands in contrast to the mythical origins of the gods formerly worshipped by the Galatians as well as to the Gnosticism emerging at that time, which Paul refers to as “another Gospel” (Galatians 1, 9).  He even reminds them of a public vision which many of them had of Christ Crucified (cf. Galatians 3, 1).  

It is in this context that St. Paul states that Jesus was “born of a woman, born under the law”.  If we think about it, it appears very strange that Paul would feel the need to point out that Jesus was “born of a woman”.  But Paul was insisting that though Jesus was truly the Son of God, he was also truly man, and so truly among us.  Only the Son of God made man could “ransom” us from death.  We see in his phrasing how essentially did Mary play a part in the work of redemption.  Paul does not name her, but he shows that her compliance with God’s will for her to give birth to his Son proved to be the linchpin for the Lord’s work on earth.  Taking his Flesh from her flesh, humanity itself is involved in its own being saved.  Because he thus becomes our brother according to the flesh, he can teach us to call God Abba, the Aramaic word for “father”.  It is worth noting that Paul uses this term from another language — Jesus’s own language — with the Greek speaking Galatians.  Abba was how Jesus addressed the Father in prayer, as the Gospel writers tell us.  The use of this Aramaic term rather than the corresponding Greek patros may indicate its use by the ancient Christians in their prayer.  Perhaps the newly baptized person, on coming up out of the water, was directed to call out to God, Abba, as Paul seems to say in a later letter: “You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba — Father” (Romans 8, 15).  All this hinges upon the Virgin Mary’s consent to God’s plan.  This makes a man “no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir,  through God.”  And if an adopted son of God, then an adopted child of the Blessed Virgin, whose name, “Mary”, we honor today.

“Grant, we beseech You, almighty God, that through the protection of the most holy Virgin Mary, Your faithful people who delight in her name may, by her loving intercession, be delivered from all evils on earth and be found worthy to attain everlasting happiness in heaven.  Through Christ our Lord. Amen.