HAIL  MARY, FULL OF GRACE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Hail Mary, Full of Grace.”

Today’s gospel gives us the beginning as well as a key piece of the famous prayer, “The Hail Mary.”

The translation from the Greek – Luke 1:28 – in today’s gospel goes like this:

“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she [Mary]  was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.”

A 15 YEAR OLD GIRL

This part of today’s gospel is translated from the Greek as – “Hello, Highly favored one.” Or, “Hi O Blessed one.” Or, “Hail, full of grace.”

The Greek is, “Kekaritomene.”

God picks this young girl – probably around age 15 – to bring Jesus into the world – as a baby.

It’s an amazing story. It’s the Christmas story. It’s our story.

This Christmas – when you see the stable – the crib – the Christmas scene – whether it’s on a Christmas card – here in church – outside church – under your Christmas tree – wherever …. Whenever you see that scene: stop, pause, see, take a look at the baby, then take a look at Joseph, take a look at Mary, take a look at the shepherds, the kings, the animals, the stable – the manger, the crib  – where food is put for animals in a barn or stable or a cave.  Stop. Look. See. Be amazed.

The crib which the baby Jesus is placed in at his birth is as humble – as simple as those silver metal bowls outside some stores – with water for dogs. 

God, the Son of God, Jesus, the Savior, the Redeemer, when born is placed in a crib for food for animals.

Stop – get in touch with the Christmas crib.

Hear the angel Gabriel say, “Hail Mary, full of Grace.”

Hail, O Highly favored one.

Hear the angel Gabriel tell Mary God’s plan.

2000 years ago – for some reason  - God only knows – God chooses this 15 year old girl to be the mother of Jesus – the Son of God.

Mary asks questions.

“HelloOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“I’m nor married. How can this happen? How is the possible? You have to be kidding. You are aren’t you?”

The voice, the messenger, is serious.

And Mary says, “Yes!”

Someone said the greatest prayer to say to God is, “Thy will be done.”

It can sometimes be the hardest prayer to say – to pray.

In this short homily I asking you to see the Christmas stable, crib, or manger and hear the simple story of this 15 year old girl.

GREEN LIGHT - RED LIGHT

Picture a 15 year old girl in the back seat of her family car – or on a bus – and the bus or car comes to a red light  - just outside a catholic crib.

The car stops. The girl looks out the window and sees the Christmas scene in the cold night air.

She wonders what it would be like if God had chosen her.

“Hail, Mary, Hail, Cheyenne,  Hail, Deborah. Hail Penny, Hail Christine, full of grace….The Lord is with you.”

And this young 15 year old girl gets it. 

She thinks, “God wants me in the year 2015 – to be like Mary and bring Christ to our world.”

She realizes how strange that seems.

She says, “I’m not immaculate.”

She realizes, “I’m only 15.”

And yet she gets the grace to say, “Thy will be done.”

She realizes  that others might make fun of her. She realizes how difficult this will be.

She remembers how in English class this past week – when they were studying Hemingway, the teacher said that  Hemingway gave as a definition for “guts” – “Grace under pressure.”

The red light changed to green.

Yet she stayed with that thought and for the rest of her she tried to bring the gift of Christ – like Mary did – to all the people of her life.

It was difficult but she had the grace to try to do it.

And in that car – that December night – December 21^st – the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, this girl realized the Christmas message – that all of us are called to be like Mary – to bring Christ to the world.

We’re called to evolve – beyond being an animal – a cat that scratches, a dog that bites, a cow that moos, an ox that gores and pushes – we’re called to be human – and to be like Christ – and like Mary who brought Christ to our world – and to have the guts to do just that – in the pressure of daily living.

“Then she said in the back seat of that car on  a cold December night, “They will be done.”

CONCLUSION

And her dad who was driving, looks in the rear view mirror, sees her daughters face in the back seat of the car. Her face is glowing. Her dad asks, “What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, just Christmas, dad. Just Christmas.”

And her dad said, “About presents?”

“Yes, dad, yes, but not the regular ones, dad.”

“It’s Christ – the gift of Christ.”

And her dad, almost crashed the car – at that.

And sitting there in the front seat of the car – with his wife asleep on the other side of him and her brother playing with an electronic game – her dad thinking about what his daughter just said, tears came to his eyes. And he want back to Mass that Christmas – and for the rest of his life.

His daughter without knowing it started her life’s job that night in that car: being like Mary – bringing Christ to our world.

DECEMBER NIGHT

Poem for Today - December 21, 2014

ORION

It’s a cold December night,
But for a change, the stars are out,
Sparkling as if recently polished because company is coming.
Orion reclines on the horizon
As if he really were a god tired of the rut.

The wind bullies the trees.
I like to think it’s caused by the confusion of angels,
Their wings beating at the speed of hummingbirds,
Flitting from those who pray for their own needs
Towards those who pray for others, then back again,
Never getting anything done.

But I know there are neither pagan gods
Nor confused messengers of light.
At the soul of this most beautiful universe
There is only the elemental elegance of vibrating strings.
And I know it’s true, because, on nights like this,
I can feel the sympathetic reverberations in my heart.

Yes, I know a wise man would go back inside his house
To the warmth of his family and friends
And explain these oscillations in terms they might understand,
Like the vibrations of the guitar strings he plays
As they sing Christmas carols;

And failing that,
Point to the tinsel which hangs from the Christmas tree
With the angel impaled on top,
And how the strands tremble as the model train encircles it.
To which someone says that it sounds like “Cat’s Cradle,”
And everyone laughs and drinks and feels better.

But this is not a wise man shivering out here,
Watching Orion get to his feet.

© Ron Yazinski

SOLSTICE

Poem for Today - December 20, 2014

THE SOLSTICE AND ME

I live a city life.
My day is measured by
Commercial and electronic rulers: the news on NPR, not nature.
Solstice or not, my life is
Friends and relatives.
In winter, there are special meals with close friends to acknowledge the holiday season,
We can’t ignore lights strung on trees and decorated store windows,
But darkness or light does not make the meal.
In December, I lunch with a relative here to see Xmas and welcome the New Year.
Now, after the first, I am sitting on my couch with another out-of-towner who seeks work to spend ten months having a NY City experience.
The only difference between now and June is the weather. Up at 8:00. To bed at –
More light or less. It’s the people I’m with or not who determine my day, not the weather.

© Ellen Kaplan

WINTER IS ICUMIN  IN

Poem for Today - Friday - December 19, 2014

WINTER TREES

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

© William Carlos Williams

BIRDS IN WINTER

Poem for Today - December 18, 2014

  

WHITE-EYES

In winter

    all the singing is in

         the tops of the trees

             where the wind-bird

with its white eyes

    shoves and pushes

         among the branches.

             Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,

    but he's restless—

         he has an idea,

             and slowly it unfolds

  from under his beating wings

    as long as he stays awake.

         But his big, round music, after all,

             is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.

    In the pine-crown

         he makes his nest,

             he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,

    I only imagine his glittering beak

         tucked in a white wing

             while the clouds—

 which he has summoned

    from the north—

         which he has taught

             to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall

    into the world below

         like stars, or the feathers©

               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,

    that is asleep now, and silent—

         that has turned itself

             into snow.

©  Mary Oliver

THE  DOMINO  EFFECT 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for December 17th, is,  “The Domino Effect.”

It’s won’t be about the square pizza boxes with the round pizzas inside the box  – but those plastic tiny plastic rectangles – that are used in the game of Dominos.

GAMES, GAMES, GAMES

For the past 19 years my sister-in-law and my brother’s daughters get together for Thanksgiving week – with their families. They rent one of those big, big, houses at Virginia Beach, or Rehobeth, or Deep Creek Lake or the Outerbanks in North Carolina. This year we had lots of folks together at Virginia Beach. It makes for a great Thanksgiving Week.

In the generation before that we met as a family – but just for a few days every year at Thanksgiving in one of homes – one of which was a big retreat house where I was stationed in San Alfonso, Long Branch, N.J. – on the ocean.

And one of the things we do all week is play games – besides Turkey, food, a good walk every day – and talk every night – well into the dark.

I like to stand there – off to the side – and just watch our family in progress – and we’ve come a long way from babies.

Over there are 3 people doing a jigsaw puzzle. Over in that corner are 4 people playing cards: Shanghai Rummy, Over there are 4 people playing Boggle.  Over there are people playing Monopoly or Clue or what have you. Over there are 5 people playing dominos.

When we were growing up – we used to say the family rosary - together. It took about 15 minutes – but it felt like 15 hours. “Ugh!” at times. We also played lots of card games. That was a lot more fun – and we felt like we never had enough time.

There was a saying when I was growing up in the 1940’s and 1950’s, “The family that prays together, stays together.” 

Looking back now I would also add, “The family that plays together stays together.”

THE DOMINO EFFECT

Today’s gospel – Matthew 1: 1-17 - is how the Gospel of Matthew opens up.  It’s a genesis. It gives the geneology of Jesus according to Matthew.

Matthew  starts with Abraham and goes to Jesus.  He gives this long list of names in groups of 14. Luke does it from Jesus back to Adam.

I love reading those fascinating names – many of which are hard to pronounce. We were told: “Just pronounce them with authority and loud and clear.” For example, Matthew’s list has “Abraham, Amminadab, Abijah, Asaph, Amos, Abiud, Azor, Achim….” And those are only the names that begin with “A”.

I hear some priests not liking this gospel when it’s read. I love it.

THREE LESSONS

Let me give three lessons from this gospel of Matthew.

But first me first talk about “The Domino Effect.”

Someone somewhere along the line must have had a box of dominos – but nobody to play – so they lined them up on their side – and then started a chain reaction toppling of the dominos.

What was created was the so called, “Domino Effect.”

Type into Google, “The Domino Effect” and you’ll come up with this Guinness Book of Records enterprise that people around the world like to do.

One YouTube will show some young people in Norway trying to set a domino effect fall of 150,000 dominos. Next someone tried to top that and lined up 250,000 and on and on and on.

I noticed last night that one domino effect set-up used 4 million, 491,863 domino. That’s a lot of dominos. It took some 90 people 2 months to line them all up.

It’s all filmed. Check it out.  Maybe we could collect all the unused dominos in Annapolis and find a big hall – and see what we could pull off. I’m sure they leave different sections separate just in case someone bumps one domino too soon – and the whole enterprise topples down before its time.

FIRST LESSON: THE GIFT OF LIFE

The first lesson from the Domino Effect for me is to realize all the people that are part of my line – to get me into existence for my turn at life.

Just like today’s gospel, someone begat someone – and on and on and on down to me.

Pinch yourself.

Each of us is like just one domino – on a long, long, long, long, long line of dominos.

I love to quote the comment by Groucho Marx.  “If your parents didn’t have any kids, chances are you won’t either.”

Pinch yourself – in a prayer of Thanksgiving for the gift of life.

As priest I get nervous that I didn’t have any kids – yet a priest is called “father”. That teaches me that it’s not just our parents who parent us. Teachers, coaches, aunts, uncles, priests, ministers, rabbis, all contribute to our upbringing. Yet that domino thing hits me every time. My line stops with me. “Uh oh!”

SECOND LESSON: THE GIFT OF FAITH

I notice family members who have dropped out of the practice of our faith.

I am a Catholic because my parents were Catholics in Ireland and I assume their parents were Catholic and back and back and back and back and back.

I wonder what if someone way back way back dropped out – and then came back again. Or was their one convert way back when?

I wonder about the larger number of Catholics who have given up their faith – or dropped out of going to Mass, etc. etc. etc. Are they stopping the Domino Effect of faith for people to come?

THIRD LESSON: THE LITTLE EVERYDAY INTERACTIONS

The third lesson concerns the little everyday interactions we have with each other.

Smiles beget smiles; scowls beget scowls.

Random acts of kindness beget random acts of kindness.

I remember seeing as a kid a cartoon about the Domino Effect.

A general calls in a Colonel – and yells at him. The Colonel then goes out and yells at a Lieutenannt – who then goes out and yells at a Captian – who then yells at a seargeant, who then yells at a private – who then goes out and yells or kicks a dog – and the dog then goes and starts chasing and barking at a car.

Is the angry person a long line of angry people – and we are just seeing one angry person?

I’m sure from time to time we’ve all experienced the Domino Effect in traffic, in school, at home amongst brothers and sisters.

CONCLUSION

Give this stuff some time and some food for thought. Amen.

MIRROR  MIRROR  ON  THE  WALL

Poem for today, Wednesday, December 17, 2014

MIRROR

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

© Sylvia Platt