This morning’s liturgy is a little complicated. There are a number of themes that come together in our celebration today. First and most obvious, we have rung in the new year and so as we pray together at this Mass we take time to remember the significant events of the past year and to pray for God’s blessings and guidance in 2012. Second, January 1 is World Day of Justice and Peace in the Church. As he does every year, the pope has issued a special message for this day; this year’s is titled “Educating Young People in Justice and Peace.” So today we pray that our world will become a more just and peaceful place in the coming year. And we keep in mind all of those people throughout the world who live in situations of oppression and war. And third, in our liturgy this morning we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. We remember Mary’s singular role in the story of salvation and call upon her with a title that was very important to Christians in the early Church: “Mother of God”.

It strikes me that the person of Mary really draws together all of these different themes and helps us to focus our prayer this morning. The hymn attributed to Mary, the Magnificat, celebrates the powerful working of God’s grace in her life: “The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is God’s name.” We profess that Mary’s life and her person were marked by a singular greatness. We believe that Mary was the “most perfectly redeemed” of all human persons. God’s redeeming, life-giving grace shaped her life in such a profound way that she was even preserved from the presence and power of sin.

Distinctive greatness is a funny thing; it can affect us in very different ways. Sometimes our encounter with such greatness can be overpowering and even humiliating. It can serve only to remind us of our own limitations and inadequacies. I remember as a teenager playing in a basketball game against a very good ballplayer. He went on to play for a prominent college team, had a leading role in the national championship game and played in the NBA. He is still involved in the game today as a coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. We had heard the scouting reports and knew how good he was before the game, and he proved to be just as great a ballplayer as everybody had said. Playing against him was for me a not-so-subtle reminder of the real limitations of my basketball talent. It wasn’t pretty. It was an overpowering and very humbling experience.

But sometimes we experience distinctive greatness that does not overpower or diminish us but, rather, lifts us up. It ennobles us. Some years ago when I was teaching in Boston, a friend gave me two tickets to hear the Boston Symphony on a night in which Yitzhak Perlman was playing a Beethoven violin concerto. I remember watching as this disabled virtuoso slowly made his way across the stage with the braces that enable him to walk. After the initial applause there was silence, as he carefully backed his way to the riser on which the soloist’s chair was located, lifted himself up and took his violin in hand. Then he launched into a flawless performance of that concerto. It was an experience of distinctive greatness that elevated all those who were present; it brought you into deeper touch with your own dignity as a human being. It was an ennobling experience.

The singular greatness of Mary is certainly of the second kind. It is always ennobling; it elevates all of us. In the gospel, we have gazed at Luke’s portrait of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. Luke tells us that “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” This courageous woman of faith had been receptive to the presence and action of the Spirit in her life, uttering her yes to God’s plan of salvation, even when it interfered with her own plans for her life. One can only imagine the stares that she received from relatives and neighbors in her little village of Nazareth when her child was born sooner than they thought it was supposed to be. Her life had been turned completely upside down. Mary’s “yes” to the angel meant that her life became enveloped in mystery, in the mystery of God’s saving love becoming enfleshed in human history.  Mary stood before this mystery as a woman of profound faith, but she must have wondered how it would all turn out. There must have been times in which the darkness of mystery seemed to overpower the light. And yet she treasured “these things” in her heart and reflected on them, trusting that God was at work in a way that transcended human comprehension. Mary shows us that at its heart human dignity is discovered and expressed in relationship – in relationship to the God in whose image we have been created. It was by giving of herself fully to God that Mary lived out the essence of human dignity.

In his message for World Day of Justice and Peace, Pope Benedict reflects on the need to tap into the idealism of younger people in our world and to educate them in the ways of justice and peace. He stresses that we need more than intelligent teachers who can espouse ideas and theories; we need credible witnesses who model lives committed to building a more just and peace-filled world. And he emphasizes that at the very heart of the work for justice and peace is the recognition of the inherent dignity of every human person.  Benedict says that “the first step in education is learning to recognize the Creator’s image in [the human person], and consequently learning to have a profound respect for every human being and helping others to live a life consonant with this supreme dignity.” The pope reminds us that peace cannot be attained without safeguarding respect for the dignity of persons and peoples.

The pope’s message for this day echoes what we learn from the life and the discipleship of Mary. It is a message that reaffirms the inestimable worth that every person has as a child of a loving Creator. Saint Paul exhorted the Christians in Galatia never to forget their own worth as sons and daughters of God, the God to whom they could cry out in the Spirit, “Abba, Father.” He reminded them that they were not slaves but children of God in Christ, and that they must live their lives out of that truth.

As we pray on this New Year’s Day, friends, you and I, too, are invited to recall the dignity we have as daughters and sons of a loving Creator. This human dignity was refashioned through the life, death and resurrection of Christ. We are challenged to think and act and choose from the perspective of that God-given dignity. That is the way that Mary lived her life, and her example is meant to be ennobling for each one of us. Each of us is summoned to enter into this new year with an abiding awareness that he or she is truly a child of God. And we are challenged to recognize and affirm the God-given dignity of every person we meet, particularly the most vulnerable of our world, those people whose dignity is so often impugned. We are called to demonstrate a profound respect for the transcendent dignity of every human being, at whatever stage of life he or she may be.

Christ thinks so much of us that he offers himself to us in this wonderful sacrament of the Eucharist.  He comes to commune with us and in so doing he raises us up, just as Mary was elevated by the presence of God in her life. As we approach the table of the Lord, may we pledge to live this year as God’s sons and daughters and to affirm the dignity of every person whom we meet.

- Fr. Robin Ryan, C.P.

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