God’s Go-Betweens

Seeing how God uses creatures and creation to come to us

01/01/2025

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.

I came across this meme on social media last week that gets to the heart of today’s solemnity called "Mary, the Mother of God." And before I share it, let me apologize for its polemical tone. It sounds a little argumentative. But my purpose is not to criticize our Protestant brothers and sisters, but rather, I only want to comprehend better what we Catholics believe.

The meme stated this: “Protestants have a problem when Catholics go to Jesus through Mary. They claim we should go directly to Him. Now, we can go directly to Jesus, and we don’t negate that. What they do not realize is that God did not come directly to us. He chose to come to us through Mary. His ways are better than our ways.”

Can you hear the implicit polemic? But we Catholics should not be trying to “one-up” the Protestants. Nonetheless, the meme does state something very true, namely, God always uses go-betweens when he deals with us human beings. In the Old Testament, God sent the angels, or the prophets, and in the New Testament he comes through his own Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Look at it this way. Even the human flesh that Jesus took for his human nature came from Mary, his mother. Jesus did not manufacture his human nature out of thin air, but out of a woman. Now, no doubt Jesus was fully masculine, still I cannot help but think he had his mother’s eyes, or perhaps his mother’s smile, or maybe his mother’s habits of prayer, like we hear in the gospel today: “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” Jesus often spent the whole night in profound prayer.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote in his masterful book, “The Life of Christ,” these insightful lines: “When the Divine Child was conceived, Mary’s humanity gave Him hands and feet, eyes and ears, and a body with which to suffer” (p. 24). By the way, the first occasion when Jesus would shed his precious Blood was not on Good Friday, but today, 8 days after his birth, when he was circumcised, which we also heard in today’s gospel.

In other words, the Jewish ritual of circumcision at the hands of a Jewish priest was sort of a preview of coming attractions, namely, when 33 years later other Jewish priests would incite the crowds on Good Friday to chant, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The same body Jesus received from Mary that first suffered under the knife of circumcision was later was thrust through with a lance hanging limp on the Cross.

You see, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity could have come down in all the splendor and majesty of his eternal Godhead and snapped his divine fingers to save us, but he didn’t do that. He came to us through Mary. And in this respect, nothing has changed in the last 2,000 years. God continues to come to us through his creation and his creatures.

For example, in the Eucharist, Jesus comes in the disguise of Bread and Wine. He borrows the lips of silly and sinful priests to utter the words of consecration so that every altar becomes a new Bethlehem. The Son of God is born again to save us, not as a Baby but as Bread.

And what is the Holy Bible itself if not another go-between for God to come to us? In fact, the Bible closely parallels Mother Mary. Protestants revere the Bible like Catholics revere Mary. Protestants don't worship the Bible, and Catholics do not worship Mary. Protestants believe the Bible is inerrant (without errors), likewise Catholics believe Mary is without sin (without moral errors).

Protestants carry their Bibles everywhere they go, like we Catholics carry Mary’s rosary. In other words, both are simply God’s go-betweens, because that is how God invariably prefers to come to us and save us. Protestants and Catholics have a lot more in common than we think.

Today on January 1st, we stand on the threshold of a new year, indeed, a Jubilee Year, because it occurs every 25 years like an anniversary. And like her Son, Jesus, we too should learn Mary’s habits of prayer and “reflect on these things in our hearts.” Reflect on what things? Well, reflect on how God comes to save us.

Perhaps that would be a perfect New Year’s resolution: take time for prayer and ponder how God loves to use go-betweens in his work of salvation. Heck, maybe in 2025 God wants to use YOU as his go-between to save others. All you have to do is say like Mary, “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum” (be it done to me according to your word), and you too can become a God-bearer.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Two Hours Traffic

Appreciating John’s prologue and our personal prologues

12/31/2024

Jn 1:1-18 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light  of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

One of the unique features of Shakespeare’s plays is the introductory prologue. Serious students of Shakespeare know there is a lot to learn from those first few lines. For example, listen to the opening 15 verses of the familiar play, “Romeo and Juliet.” “Two households, both alike in dignity, / (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), / Where ancient grudge break to new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.”

“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life; / Whose misadventures piteous overthrows / Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. / The fearful passage of their death-marked love / And the continuance of their parents’ rage, / Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove, / Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; / the which, if you with patient ears attend, / What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”

Did you catch all that? Because if you did, you would not have to read the rest of the play. Why not? Well, because the prologue basically touches all the themes you will hear in the play: two feuding families, two star-crossed lovers, their untimely deaths, and the healing of this ancient family rivalry. The prologue, therefore, is the whole play in a nutshell, in this case, in 15 verses.

In the gospel today, St. John takes a page out of Shakespeare’s playbook (pun intended), and introduces the traffic of his entire 21 chapter gospel in the first 18 verses. John touches the main themes he will develop, such as, light and darkness, the Word of God, the testimony of St. John the Baptist, being born again, God’s glory, the Son of God.

In other words, just as Shakespeare prepared his readers for the two hours' traffic of his stage, so John prepares his readers for the 21 chapter traffic of his gospel. Prologues serve as powerful introductions and should not be overlooked or brushed aside quickly, but rather scrutinized closely and studied assiduously.

My friends, I would suggest to you that each of us has a personal prologue in our lives. What do I mean? Well, psychologists tell us that the first seven years of a person’s life are intensely programmatic because in those initial years we develop our basic character and the rough contours of our personalities. Our life experiences in our first seven years essentially tell us what kind of person we will be and what kind of life we can expect to live.

The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, said, “Give me a child until he is 7, and I will show you the man.” So, today, at the end of 2024, let me invite you to go back in your mind’s eye and through your memory banks and carefully study your own personal prologue, the first seven years of your life. Who you are today was already preprogrammed in those introductory years, like we see in Shakespeare’s and St. John’s powerful prologues.

If I might use myself as a guinea pig, let me share some of my personal prologue. I was raised in India and lived my first seven years in the capital city New Delhi. Even though most of my memories are sketchy, those early childhood experiences made me the man you hear talking to you today.

For example, Indian society, at least in the early 1970’s, was deeply structured in the caste system. People were born, grew up, and died either as the untouchables, lower, middle, or the highest priestly caste. No wonder I wanted to become a priest! Another theme those first seven years touched upon was the traumatic move from India to the United States. It was traumatic but also taught me a great truth: all things are fragile, and finally we lose them. But God alone endures forever.

In the prologue of my life I woke up to the eternal existence of God, and simultaneously, the fickle existence of everything else. No wonder I find myself irresistibly drawn to what is enduring or even classical, like Shakespeare’s plays, and I turn my nose up at fashions and fad that come and go. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen once remarked: “Marry this age, and you become a widow in the next.”

Folks, go back and reread St. John’s Prologue because that brilliant saint has wisely prepared you to hear the rest of his gospel. And then go back and review your own personal prologue, the first seven years of your life. More than you yourself, the Holy Spirit is the Author of your life, and there he too touches the main themes you will see for the 80 or 90 years’ traffic of your life.

Praised be Jesus Christ!