ON BEING
THE FAVORITE
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for December 20th is, “On Being the Favorite.”
I don’t know about you, but I love to ask parents who
their favorite child is.
Most of the time parents respond that they don’t have a favorite.
Others nuance their answer by saying, “It all depends. I
like this about this one and that about that one. So it all depends.”
And sometimes a parent says they have a favorite.
I never had problems with someone being the favorite,
because I had favorite teachers and favorite priests I’ve been stationed with.
And sometimes I add something people don’t like to
report: there are some folks who are not my favorites.
WHY I’M
BRINGING THIS UP?
I’m bringing this up because this is a way of translating
Luke 1: 28 - which is part of today’s gospel. It’s where the angel Gabriel says
to Mary, “Hail full of grace. The Lord is with you.”
Most translations say, “Greetings, most favored one.” or
“Hail , O favored one.” The King James Bible has , “Hail, thou art highly favored.
The Lord is with you.” In Greek: it’s “kecharitomene”
- favored one.
Our Catholic translation goes with the beginning of the
Hail Mary, “full of Grace….”
I’ve run into Protestants and others who don’t get the
Catholic thing about Mary. I like to
say, “Walk into any big city art museum and walk around and look at the
pictures. You’ll find out she’s the favorite of so many artists. Then I am tempted to add, “And you think Mary
is our favorite. Talk to God and you’ll find out that Mary is God’s favorite as
well.”
So when we say the Hail Mary, we’re not only saying what
the Angel Gabriel said - but we’re joining with billions of people who have praised
God for picking Mary to be his Mother. God chose Mary to bring Christ into our world - because she
is the Father’s favorite.
Moreover, God gives Mary to us and Christ gave her to us
from the cross.
Hail full of Grace, most faithful one of God.
CONCLUSION
Then the call to all of us is to be like Mary - to favor
those we’re with.
We know people who have run out of wine of life. Mary helped the couple at Cana in
Galilee when they ran out of wine. We
know people who are hurting along the way of their cross - and those who are
dying. Mary was there for all - on their
ways of the cross - and she is under our cross when we’re dying.
We pray for that in every Hail Mary: “Holy Mary, Mother
of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
If I hear anything about Jesus it’s he noticed who was
stuck - who was touching the tassels on his cloak - those who were under the
tree of a cross.
So I assume he learned much from Mary. Hey the apple doesn’t fall too far from
the tree.
