WHAT A WAY to start the new year! As a Church, we are privileged to begin by honoring Mary, the Mother of God, while still basking in the fresh light of Christmas. We have honored the Christ Child – and indeed continue to do so – but for a brief moment we turn our gaze to His Mother and ours, while her loving gaze never leaves His precious little body. This is at the heart of the mystery of Mary which we contemplate today.
My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, I read an interesting article on icons some years ago. It is important to understand these images that come from the Eastern tradition and contain in themselves its whole theology. For example, the clothing of Jesus and Mary shows the colors red and blue, but they are reversed in that Jesus usually has a red tunic and a blue mantle while Our Lady usually has a blue dress and a red mantle. Why, you might ask? Red symbolizes divinity, while blue is a symbol of humanity. In this way, it can be said that Jesus is God made man, while Our Lady instead is a human creature who has been in a certain sense divinized.
The month of May has been dedicated to the Virgin Mary for centuries – so long, in fact, that the precise origin of this Catholic devotion is lost in the mists of time.
May is when we honor the women in our lives. For me, that it is when I most marvel at my mother. She taught me to work hard, fulfill commitments, be dependable and make sacrifices. But the most important gift she gave me was a strong foundation in faith.
I’ve evolved through various stages of Marian devotion in my life. … Nevertheless, even today I struggle to know her.
Since Pope Francis spoke of “feminine genius,” I get questions periodically as to what it possibly means. I could not speak for the pope. I could only reach for my own answers, which come into view through the people I associate with his description.
