4th Sun of Advent December 24, 2017 Year B

As you draw near to Christmas, may you in this Eucharist be endowed with the grace to always say yes to the will of God. Happy Sunday!Merry Christmas and prosperous Year 2018.

+ John I. Okoye

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(2 Samuel 7,1-5.8-12.14; Romans 16,25-27; Luke 1,26-38: 4th Sun of Advent December 24, 2017 Year B)

 In the Advent season there are some personalities that are outstanding and around whom the messages of the period are woven. One cannot have followed the atmosphere of Advent without taking into consideration the contribution of some oracles in the book of Prophet Isaiah. Likewise, the witness of John the Baptist, add colour to the season. Today, the last Sunday of Advent, the church contemplates Mary and her role in the work of salivation. It was to her that the Archangel Gabriel was sent to solicit her cooperation in the Incarnation of the Son of God. She was to be the mother of Jesus, the Saviour. Mary exclaimed: “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum”. (Let it happen to me as you have said)  These were the very words of submission to God’s will with which Mary gave her priceless consent to the divine plan for the restoration of humanity in harmony with God.  These words which ended the encounter between Mary and the Archangel as narrated in today’s gospel marked the high point in the events leading to the actualisation of the mystery of incarnation.  Mary bowed to God’s demand even when the modality of its realisation was not perfectly comprehensible. In unequalled obedience to God’s will, she freely gave her word, permitting the Word of God to take flesh in her womb. By So doing, Mary became the most important collaborator with God in the work of salvation.   Humble submission to God’s will is an act of faith and an indication of the depth of one’s love and trust in God.  Mary exemplified all these.  The message the angel brought her was like a jigsaw puzzle and she did not hide her candid worry.  The thrill she must have felt about the thought of conceiving the Son of the Most High did not diminish her pious desire and resolution to remain a virgin.  “But how can this come about, since I have no knowledge of man”, she asked.  The response the archangel gave her made it clear that God had the answer.  All that was required of her was just to make a humble submission and watch God do the rest.  That she did.  No doubt she valued her virginity and was intent on keeping it.  Yet she was ready to allow God’s will be done even when it looked incomprehensible.

 What does the mother Church want us to learn from Mary in this last Sunday of Advent? The church wants us to learn that it is important for us to learn from Mary to leave some space for God and to renounce all pretences to independence and autonomy so that God will have the freedom to direct our future. Again it is important  to learn from Mary how to be totally open to the love and initiative of God who is willing to sanctify our lives. It is also important to respond, like Mary, unalloyed, “here I am” and ready to do God’s will. This is not always easy because such response implies adhesion to God’s will at all times, places and circumstances. To respond, here I am, I am your servant obliges one to renounce ones pride and egoism and urges one to make the constant effort to eliminate vices and negative influences in our lives.

 The mystery of incarnation is one big act of saying yes to God.  Jesus said yes to the Father and came down to share in our humanity.  Mary said yes to God and offered her body that the Word of God may take flesh in her womb.  As we draw closer to the season of Christmas, one lesson we need to draw from the mystery of incarnation, which will make our celebration more meaningful, is the need to be ready always to say yes to God. This implies unconditional submission to God’s will especially when it tends to go contrary to our human desire and strategies no matter how noble or pious they may seem. Therefore best worship we can offer to God is to let his will, not ours be done. Happy Sunday! Merry Christmas and prosperous Year 2018! + John I. Okoye.  

(pictures by chukwubike)

DEVOTION TO MARY

May is Mary's month, but why?

The practice of dedicating the month of May to our Lady was popularized especially by the Rosary Encyclicals of Leo XIII – beginning in 1883 and concluding in 1889, the Pontiff wrote twelve encyclicals and five apostolic letters on the Rosary. The Catholic Encyclopedia discusses the rather recent origin of Mary Month:

“The May devotion [to our Lady] in its present form originated at Rome where Father Latomia of the Roman College of the Society of Jesus, to counteract infidelity and immorality among the students, made a vow at the end of the eighteenth century to devote the month of May to Mary. From Rome the practice spread to the other Jesuit colleges and thence to nearly every Catholic church of the Latin rite (Albers, "Bluethenkranze", IV, 531 sq.). This practice is the oldest instance of a devotion extending over an entire month.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, “Special Devotions for Months”)

Yet, although many Catholics know that May is dedicated to the Mother of God, it may be a bit of a puzzle as to why May was chosen for this special honor. What is it about May that makes it suited to be the Month of Mary?

Mary Month – Why May?

Some have pointed to the fact that, in classic western culture (both Greek and Roman), May was recognized as the season of the beginning of new life. In the Greek world, May was dedicated to the goddess Artemis and associated with fecundity. Roman culture linked the month of May to Flora, the goddess of bloom and blossoms – this led to the custom of ludi florales (or floral games) which took place at the very end of April as a preparation for entering into the month of May.

It seems that this ancient tradition of connecting May with new life and fecundity, led to a realization that May is very much the month of motherhood – this may be the reason why Mother’s Day is celebrated during May not only in the United States but in many countries and cultures of both the East and the West. In the month of May, the winter comes to an end and the spring season begins (this was the official beginning of spring in Roman culture). This new beginning and new birth is a testimony to the motherhood of Mother Earth.

The connection between motherhood and May led Christians eventually to adopt May as Mary Month. May is the Month of our Lady precisely as the Mother of God. So wrote the priest-poet Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, sj in his marian classic “May Magnificat.”

May Magnificat

MAY is Mary’s month, and I  

Muse at that and wonder why:          

    Her feasts follow reason,    

    Dated due to season—         

Candlemas, Lady Day;                                                  

But the Lady Month, May,     

    Why fasten that upon her,  

    With a feasting in her honour?     

Is it only its being brighter     

Than the most are must delight her?                                 

    Is it opportunest       

    And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother:         

Her reply puts this other        

    Question: What is Spring?—                                              

    Growth in every thing—     

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,      

Grass and greenworld all together;  

    Star-eyed strawberry-breasted      

    Throstle above her nested                                       

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin          

Forms and warms the life within;    

    And bird and blossom swell           

    In sod or sheath or shell.    

All things rising, all things sizing                              

Mary sees, sympathising         

    With that world of good,     

    Nature’s motherhood.         

Their magnifying of each its kind     

With delight calls to mind                                          

    How she did in her stored  

    Magnify the Lord.     

Well but there was more than this: 

Spring’s universal bliss           

    Much, had much to say                                            

    To offering Mary May.         

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple        

Bloom lights the orchard-apple         

    And thicket and thorp are merry  

    With silver-surfèd cherry                                        

And azuring-over greybell makes     

Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes          

    And magic cuckoocall          

    Caps, clears, and clinches all—       

This ecstasy all through mothering earth                

Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth       

    To remember and exultation         

    In God who was her salvation.

 http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/may-is-marys-month-but-why.html