Mary's birthday
The names are just too many, too difficult to read and much more difficult to pronounce. Actually, if you are listening to me intently you would find out that I was not reading some of the names properly. Ginpalagpatan ko na lang ang iban sa pagpronounce, total indi nyo gid man ini sila kilala kag gani kon nagsala gid man ako, ti ako man lang kabalo. This is one gospel nobody wants to make a homily from and this is a gospel people should not expect to hear a decent homily. Ano abi ang i-sermon mo nahanungod sa ebanghelyo nga puro ngalan – halin sa puno hasta sa punta ngalan lang tanan? Indi bala?
Now since I have made a very clear excuse let me now begin my homily.
The gospel may be full of names but these are not just names - these are interesting names, names with stories behind them, names which may even shock most of us. Curious among these names are the names of women which found its way in the list of ancestry in a patriarchal society. Why are they there in the first place? They are not men and only men matter much in a patriarchal society. And who are these women and why do they matter so much? Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary. Consider the characteristics of these women. Tamar was a deliberate seducer and an adulteress – who got what she wanted through wanton seduction. Rahab was a harlot in Jericho, a prostitute, who helped the Israelites conquer her city. Ruth was a pagan woman of an impure race who became the grandmother of David. Bathsheba who was seduced by David and who in turn plotted to kill her husband in order to cover his adultery. And finally you have Mary, a woman who became a mother yet remained unbelievably a virgin. It might be easier for us now to believe Mary’s story, but in real time, in the time of her fiancée, Joseph, it would have been akin to for example, your daughter reporting to you one day that she is pregnant and tells you she got it by the power of the Holy Spirit. Probably you would even say in disbelief, ang namin mo ang Holy Spirit nga nagasuksuk dilargo?
And so we go back to our original question: what are these women doing in a patriarchal list of ancestry?
The answer lies on our first reading today, “we know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” All things work for the good for those who love God. Look at the ancestry of Jesus. It is not exactly a family you would consider DBF, de buena familia - what with a harlot, an adulterer, and impure foreigner and an accomplice to murder in the line of Jesus. And yet we affirm today that all things work for the good of those who love God. We affirm today that in this lineage where good and bad co-existed, the promised messiah was born. Even Judas, an apostle of the Lord who turned traitor has a role to play, for as Jesus said, so “that Scriptures might be fulfilled.”
This is what birthdays are all about. It is an affirmation of our humanity - that we are born of human parents, good or bad; in a human family, with the good and the bad, in a human society composed of good and bad, and we are born as human beings, essentially good but capable of things bad. This is our humanity, the humanity and family we are born into. The same humanity that Jesus took upon himself and the same humanity that God embraced in Jesus.
Today we celebrate the birthday of Mary. We celebrate her birth as a human being in a human family and in society that is both good and bad. It may not have been a perfect family in a perfect society but from her line the messiah would come, because all things work for the good for those who love God. Let me end with a popular prayer composed by Reinhold Neibhur:
God grant me, Lord, the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did,
this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right if I
surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in
the next. Amen
To the blessed mother, happy birthday. And to us born like her in this world, may we appreciate our human life with all that is good and ill in it. What would life be if we were born as perfect gods rather than weak men and women? For in our weaknesses, and precisely because of these, that we have come to merit a Savior, Jesus Christ, born through Mary.
Now since I have made a very clear excuse let me now begin my homily.
The gospel may be full of names but these are not just names - these are interesting names, names with stories behind them, names which may even shock most of us. Curious among these names are the names of women which found its way in the list of ancestry in a patriarchal society. Why are they there in the first place? They are not men and only men matter much in a patriarchal society. And who are these women and why do they matter so much? Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary. Consider the characteristics of these women. Tamar was a deliberate seducer and an adulteress – who got what she wanted through wanton seduction. Rahab was a harlot in Jericho, a prostitute, who helped the Israelites conquer her city. Ruth was a pagan woman of an impure race who became the grandmother of David. Bathsheba who was seduced by David and who in turn plotted to kill her husband in order to cover his adultery. And finally you have Mary, a woman who became a mother yet remained unbelievably a virgin. It might be easier for us now to believe Mary’s story, but in real time, in the time of her fiancée, Joseph, it would have been akin to for example, your daughter reporting to you one day that she is pregnant and tells you she got it by the power of the Holy Spirit. Probably you would even say in disbelief, ang namin mo ang Holy Spirit nga nagasuksuk dilargo?
And so we go back to our original question: what are these women doing in a patriarchal list of ancestry?
The answer lies on our first reading today, “we know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” All things work for the good for those who love God. Look at the ancestry of Jesus. It is not exactly a family you would consider DBF, de buena familia - what with a harlot, an adulterer, and impure foreigner and an accomplice to murder in the line of Jesus. And yet we affirm today that all things work for the good of those who love God. We affirm today that in this lineage where good and bad co-existed, the promised messiah was born. Even Judas, an apostle of the Lord who turned traitor has a role to play, for as Jesus said, so “that Scriptures might be fulfilled.”
This is what birthdays are all about. It is an affirmation of our humanity - that we are born of human parents, good or bad; in a human family, with the good and the bad, in a human society composed of good and bad, and we are born as human beings, essentially good but capable of things bad. This is our humanity, the humanity and family we are born into. The same humanity that Jesus took upon himself and the same humanity that God embraced in Jesus.
Today we celebrate the birthday of Mary. We celebrate her birth as a human being in a human family and in society that is both good and bad. It may not have been a perfect family in a perfect society but from her line the messiah would come, because all things work for the good for those who love God. Let me end with a popular prayer composed by Reinhold Neibhur:
God grant me, Lord, the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did,
this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right if I
surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in
the next. Amen
To the blessed mother, happy birthday. And to us born like her in this world, may we appreciate our human life with all that is good and ill in it. What would life be if we were born as perfect gods rather than weak men and women? For in our weaknesses, and precisely because of these, that we have come to merit a Savior, Jesus Christ, born through Mary.
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