Transcript of Abbot Clement’s New Year= s Homily, January 1, 2007

Of the many themes, the main theme of this Mass is the Motherhood of Mary. Maternity of Mary of course is very real and concrete. Jesus is born but now he has to develop as a human being. And the mother is a crucial and important element, even though some philosophers felt it wasn’t necessary. The fact is the mother evokes the child and brings the child out of itself and begins to makes relationships with the world and life around them especially emotional. For instance, it= s been shown that autism problems can begin to be healed if the mother and the father, especially the mother, begin to relate very closely with the child and some of the damage the child has to go through can be healed.

So the mother plays a very important role for the unfolding of the child. She not only feeds and clothes but she teaches all kinds of ordinary things that we take for granted. Like manners. We don= t know if Jesus had his own room, whether he cleaned it or not but the fact is the mother does all of those little things. But in that time also probably Mary was the home-schooler. We know Jesus read so he must have learned to read from his mother and probably the other little skills that belong to society at the time were necessary. Maybe a certain amount of mathematics, etc., was taught by Mary. Certainly she must have taught him the traditions of the community because after all we saw yesterday that the family went to Passover every year. I= m sure the child went with them, was rising all kinds of questions and Mary would answer those questions for Jesus and probably she certainly taught Jesus how to pray. Being herself very conscious of God as her Father certainly opened him up to his faith dimension as a human being.

So the role of Mary= s maternity is already a significant role just on that alone on the human level. But it’s more than human because the whole context of the life Holy Family is in the awareness that they are in the plan of God. We see the Blessed Mother and Joseph take Jesus to the temple and to present him according to the law. So they are already aware of the fact that they live their lives under the umbrella of the faith community that God is running the world and they all have a destiny and of course it shows up very strongly already at the age of 12 when Jesus tells his parents that he has to be about his Father= s business.

Which means that Jesus grew up rather well? That means his conscience was formed by the Blessed Mother because that= s a normal stage in growing up. Then not only your conscience but because you are a faith person to be open to the word of God which opens you even more, it opens you to the awareness not only that God runs the world but that you have a mission and that your life has meaning from birth to death. So in all those things the Blessed Mother did a very good job at and it shows in Jesus’ life.

But more importantly, of course, Mary= s motherhood begins to show itself when at the cross Jesus tells John: "Behold your Mother," when Jesus gives Mary to us as our Mother. Which means that Mary is participating in the mystery of redemption for the whole world and especially in the Mother of the Church? We see this in history. We see that the Blessed Mother appears here and all over the world in order to guide the church and lead it more into the history of salvation. So it’s a real unfolding of Mary= s maternity. It shows always the same basic truth that the Eastern Rite often designates in its icons that Mary points to Jesus. So she is the one that shapes the life of Jesus in our life if we turn to her and ask her for her guidance and help.

If we look at the lives of Saints we see that this was rather well done for those who committed themselves to any kind of serious devotion to the Blessed Mother our previous pope being one such person. He basically dedicated his life to the Blessed Mother and his short form of that dedication he expressed by saying "Totus Tuos", which means he gave everything to the Blessed Mother to accomplish the mission he was called to do. We see that the Blessed Mother didn’t let him down. That he really was a very effective presence in the church and led the church well because he was guided by the Blessed Mother in a lot of ways.

So this celebration of this feast is not simply to praise and thank the Lord for the great gift of the Blessed Mother but it= s to awaken us to the great role the Blessed Mother has in the work of redemption. She is truly our mother. She is active, not passive. And therefore like any mother she’s solicitous about our welfare and our salvation and will obtain what we need to be not only faithful to God= s grace but to abound and become the servants of the Lord and promote the kingdom.