TThe Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God - New Year's day
BLESS, DON’T CURSE
IT IS THE WAY OF PEACE
Introduction
Christians have always connected the traditional New Year’s Day festival to a motif of their faith. Before the liturgical reform of Vatican Council II, Jesus’ circumcision was celebrated. It took place, according to Luke, eight days after his birth (Lk 2:21). Next, this day was dedicated to Mary, Mother of God. Then, from 1968, January 1 became the ‘World Day of Peace’ promulgated by Pope Paul VI. The readings reflect a variety of themes: a blessing to begin well the new year (First Reading); Mary, model of every mother and disciple (Gospel); peace (First Reading and the Gospel); the divine sonship (Second Reading); amazement before God’s love (Gospel); the name with which God wishes to be identified and invoked (First reading and the Gospel).
‘To bless’ and ‘blessing’ are terms that often occur in the Bible. They can be found on almost every page (552 times in the Old Testament, 65 times in the New Testament). From the beginning, God blesses his creatures: the living beings that they be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:22); the man and the woman that they rule over all creation (Gen 1:28); and the Sabbath, the sign of rest and joy without end (Gen 2:3).
We need to feel blessed by God and by the community. Cursing distances separate and indicates rejection, whereas blessing instead embraces, strengthens solidarity, and infuses trust and hope. ‘May the Lord bless you and protect you’: these are the first words that the Readings utter on this day. May they be impressed on our hearts and let us repeat them to friends and enemies throughout the year.
“Teach us, O Lord, to bless those who insult us,
to bear with those who persecute us,
to challenge those who slander us.”
First Reading: Numbers 6:22-27
Even today, the market for blessings and curses, magic spells, fractures, and the evil eye is flourishing. It flourished even more in ancient times when it was thought that the word—accompanied by gestures and pronounced by one gifted with superhuman and mysterious powers—could bring what is expressed to completion.
Among those with faith, the Word of God was naturally thought of as always efficacious: “With his word, he created the heavens… he speaks and all is made, he commands and all exist” (Ps 33:6,9). They trembled at his curses, and they invoked his blessings. He blessed his people when He filled them with good things when He extended prosperity and health, successes and victories, rain and fruitfulness to the fields and animals (Dt 28:1-8). Misfortunes, diseases, famine, and defeats were signs of his curse (Deut 28:15-19).
There were also mediators of divine blessings: the father of the family: “The blessing of the father strengthens the homes of the sons” (Sir 3:9), the king (Gen 14:18ff), and the priests.
Our First Reading includes the text of the most famous of blessings taught by the Lord himself to Moses. It was to be used by the ‘sons of Aaron’ ‘to put the name of the Lord on the Israelites’ (vv. 23,27), and it was used at the end of the daily liturgy in the temple. The priest came out of the sanctuary door, and stretching out his hands above the crowd who waited for him; he uttered this sacred formula.
In it, the name of the Lord—YHWH—is invoked three times. It is the ineffable name that only priests were allowed to pronounce and only to bless, never curse.
To each of the three invocations of the holy name, two requests are added:
- May the Lord bless and protect you.
- May the Lord shine His face on you and be gracious to you.
- May the Lord direct his gaze on you and give you peace.
These are six images that express the request for graces and favors. The radiant face of God is a sign of his friendship and benevolence, inspiring trust and opening the heart tojoyful hope. Using very human language, the pious Israelite often asks the Lord to “cheer up his face” and not “to hide his face” (Ps 27:8-9), not to show himself angry. “Let your face shine—the psalmist implores—and we shall be saved” (Ps 80:4): “let the light of your face shine on us, Lord” (Ps 4:7).
It’s not only God that blesses the person but also the person is called to bless God. In the Psalms, the invitation insistently returns, “Bless the Lord, all of you, servants of the Lord .... Raise your hands towards the sanctuary and bless the Lord” (Ps 134:1-2); “Bless his name … tell of his glory, to all the nations tell his prodigies” (Ps 96:2-3). The pious Israelite starts all his prayers with the formula: ‘Blessed are you, Lord.’
The blessing that a person addresses to the Lord is the answer for goods received. It is the sign that he is aware that all good comes from him, his gift. The Bible continuously speaks of God’s blessings and—very rarely—of his curses. It uses very human language to describe the disastrous consequences provoked not by God but by sin. Who strays from the way of life brings upon himself the worst misfortunes. The sage, Ben Sirach, already understood this: “The evil anyone does will recoil on him without knowing how it came upon him” (Sir 27:27). From God, only blessing comes.
What answer has the Lord given to the petitions of his people? Israel waited for a blessing from the Lord, peace, but it was a very materialistic shalom. In the fullness of time, God has sent his peace, his Son, “he is our peace” (Eph 2:14). The surprise was so great that it made Paul exclaim: “Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, in Christ” (Eph 1:3) AndZachary with his speech restored proclaimed: “Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel who has visited and redeemed his people” (Lk 1:68).
“God has sent him to bring blessing” (Acts 3:25-26). In him, all the curses are transformed into blessings (Gal 3:8-14). If in Christ, God has revealed his always benedictory face, a person always has to bless, including one’s enemies. “Bless and do not curse” (Rom 12:14), “do not repay evil for evil, or answer one insult with another. Give a blessing instead since this is what you have been called to do, and so you will receive the blessing” (1 Pt 3:9).
Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7
In this passage of the Letter to the Galatians, Paul recalls the central truth of the Gospel: after God has sent his Son ‘born of a woman,’ that is, similar in all things to us, except sin, we can call God: “Abba, Father” (v. 6). This is the good news.
The pagans also called God ‘father of all people.’ What do Christians specifically have? Why does Paul movingly affirm that a Christian is no longer a slave but a son and can, therefore, shout: ‘Abba?’ Is the Our Father a prayer that all people can recite? To this last question, all of us will probably answer: ‘yes,’ and there is a Gospel text that justifies our answer “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good, and he gives rain to both the just and the unjust” (Mt 5:44-45). The benevolence of God does not make distinctions between people; all are his children. God is the Father of all people.
But when a pagan and a Christian invoke God as ‘father,’ they don’t mean the same thing. The pagan calls God ‘father’ because he is conscious of having received the gift of existence from him. The Christian understands himself to be a son of God at another level: he knows that besides existence, he has received from him the Holy Spirit, God’s very own divine life. For this reason, in the first centuries, the prayer, the Our Father, was given (i.e.,taught) only some days before the baptism, that is, only when the catechumens could fully understand its meaning.
The reading is also tied to the theme of the feast of peace. Those who received the Spirit and called God ‘Abba’ cannot but feel they are brothers and sisters to all people, therefore called to be peacemakers.
Gospel: Luke 2:16-21
Today’s Gospel is a continuation of the passage read during the Midnight Mass of Christmas. At the manger of Jesus, the shepherds again appear. Following the news received from heaven, they go to Bethlehem and find Joseph, Mary and the baby in a manger. One should note: they do not find anything extraordinary. They see only a baby with his father and his mother.
Nevertheless, in that weak being, needing help and protection, they recognize the Savior. They do not require great signs; they do not verify miracles and prodigies. The shepherds represent all the poor, the excluded who, almost by instinct, acknowledge in the baby of Bethlehem the Messiah from heaven.
In common Nativity depictions, the shepherds appear, in general, to be on their knees before Jesus. But the Gospel does not say that they were prostrated in adoration, as the Magi were (Mt 2:11). They simply observed—amazed in ecstasy—the marvelous work that God has done in their favor. Then they announced to others their joy, and all were astonished at what they heard (v. 18).
In the first chapters of his Gospel, Luke often reveals the marvel and the immense joy of those involved in God's plan. Having discovered herself pregnant, Elizabeth repeats to all: “This, for me, is the Lord’s doing” (Lk 1:25). Simeon and the prophetess Anna bless God, who has granted them to see the salvation prepared for all people (Lk 2:30.38); Mary and Joseph are also amazed and astonished (Lk 2:33.38).
All of them have the eyes and heart of a baby that accompanies each gesture of its father with a glance. Each baby remains enraptured by his father’s gesture and smiles; he smiles because he captures a sign of his love in all that the father does. “For the kingdom of God belong to such as these—Jesus says one day—and whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it” (Mk 10:14-15).
The first worry of the shepherds is not of an ethical type: they do not ask what they must do, what corrections they need to make to their not so exemplary moral lives, what sins they must undertake to avoid… They stand to enjoy that which God has done. Only after feeling loved can they listen to advise and the proposals of a new life poured on them by the Father. Only then will they find themselves with the proper disposition to trust him.
In the second part of the Gospel (v. 19), the reaction of Mary to the story of the shepherds is emphasized: “She treasured all these words, and pondered them in her heart”(literally: she ‘put them together’). Luke does not mean that Mary ‘had in mind’ all that happened without forgetting any particular aspect. And he does not even want to indicate—as some have argued—that Mary was the source of information concerning the infancy of Jesus. The theological significance of his affirmation is far greater. He says that Mary ‘gathered together all the facts,’ bound them, and she captured the meaning; she discovered the connecting link; she contemplated the realization of God’s plan.
Mary, although just a 12-13-year-old girl, was not superficial. She did not pride herself when things went well and did not lose heart in the face of difficulties. She meditated and observed each event with an attentive eye so she would not be conditioned by ideas, convictions, and traditions of her people, and nevertheless remained receptive to and prepared for God’s surprises. A certain Marian devotion has distanced her from our world and our human condition with its anguish, doubts, and uncertainties and from our difficulty in believing. It wrapped her in a cloud of privileges that made her admired or envied but not loved.
Luke presents her in the correct light as a sister who fulfilled a journey of faith, similar to ours. Mary does not understand everything from the beginning: she marvels at what Simeon says of the child. She is almost taken by surprise (Lk 2:33). She was amazed, as were the apostles and all the people before God’s works (Lk 9:43-45). She does not understand the words of her Son who chose to commit himself to the Father’s affairs (Lk 2:50), just as the Twelve had difficulty in understanding the words of the Teacher: “They could make nothing of this: the meaning of these words remained a mystery to them, and they did not understand what he said” (Lk 18:34).
Mary does not understand, but observes, meditates, reflects and after Easter (not before), she will understand everything; she will clearly see the meaning of that which happened. Luke will present her, for the last time, at the beginning of the book of the Acts of the Apostles. He will put her in her rightful place, in the community of believers: “All of these together gave themselves to constant prayer. With them were some women and also Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers” (Acts 1:14). She was blessed because she believed (Lk 1:45).
Today’s Gospel concludes with the report on the circumcision. With this rite, Jesus officially enters the people of Israel. But this is not the principal reason for Luke to recall this fact. He is interested in another particular; the name was given to the child, which was not chosen by the parents but was indicated directly from heaven.
For the people of the Ancient Orient, a name was not only to indicate the person but also to distinguish animals or identify objects. It was more than that. It expressed the very nature of things; it literally gave ‘identity’ to the bearer. Abigail tells of her husband: “He is just what his name says. He is called Nabal (literally ‘a fool’), and he is a fool” (1 Sam 25:25). To be called with a name of the other meant to impersonate him, to make him present, having his very own authority, to call on his protection (Deut 28:10). Keeping in mind this cultural context, we can understand Luke's importance to the name given to the child. He is called Jesus, which means ‘the Lord saves.’ Matthew explains: he was called such because he would save his people from their sins (Mt 1:21).
In the commentary on the First Reading, we said that the name of God—YHWH—could not be pronounced. But without a name, he remains anonymous. If someone does not know our name, that one cannot but have a superficial rapport with us. If God wants to enter into dialogue with a person, he must tell that person how he would like to be called; he must indicate his name and reveal his identity. He did. Choosing the name of His Son, God said who He is. Here is His identity: the one who saves, He who does nothing but saves. In the Gospels, this name is repeated 566 times, almost to remind us that God’s images not compatible with this name must be deleted.
Now we understand why in the Old Testament God did not allow His name to be pronounced, because only in Jesus does He tell us who He really is. It is interesting to note those in Luke’s Gospel who called Jesus by name. They are not the just, the perfect, but only the marginalized, those at the mercy of the forces of evil. They are the possessed (Lk 4:34), the lepers: “Jesus, teacher, have mercy on us” (Lk 17:13), the blind: “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” (Lk 18:38) and the criminal who dies on the cross beside him: “Jesus, remember me when you enter into your kingdom” (Lk 23:42).
Peter will remind the religious leaders of his people: “No other name in fact under heaven is given to people, through whom they are saved” (cf. Acts 4:12).
