Friday, January 1, 2010

Mary, the Mother of God

Today is the Octave of Christmas, and appropriately, the feast day of Mary, the Mother of God. I was going to spend some time doing an intelligent blog, but for several reasons, I only can manage a couple of short humble thoughts on the subject.
Several years ago, when I nannied for a very nice Methodist family, the four year old boy asked his mother who God's mommy was. He said that God had to have a mommy. She was baffled and couldn't supply an answer. It seemed so logical to a young child who personified God in a way only an innocent child can that no one can be with out a mother, yet to the mother who only viewed Mary as a nice women who had Jesus, and nothing special, she couldn't get to the thought that this women could possibly be who her son wanted to know about. So, the next day, she presented the situation to me and asked me what I thought. I fumbled as I always do when presented with an opportunity to share my faith, and threw out (without any good explanation)-- Mary. Without say it in so many words, she dismissed my silly "Catholic crazy talk", and that was the end of the that. I often think about that conversation and what I should have said and how I should have eloquently explained it. If I had the opportunity to go back in time, I would have explained that since Jesus is God, and Jesus had a mother, then God also has a mother, and her name is Mary. And doesn't that simple thought really bridge the gap between the protestant view of Mary as just some random women who had Jesus, and our Catholic reverence toward the Blessed Virgin?
God did have a mother- and so do we. Jesus calls us brothers and sisters, as we have the same Father and Mother. How blessed are we!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

AMEN! That was a very thoughtful post, Sarah. What is difficult to get at, even as a Catholic, is the concept that God's mother is a human being... then begs the questions, "How can a human have created God?" This is theological swampland for folks like me who have difficulty articulating even the very basics of my faith journey. Thanks for the post. Happy New Year to you and your family.