Nativity of Mary
Today’s feast invites us to consider that God, who entered history as male, with a gendered specificity that cannot be abstracted; that this God who became man and a man, in whose image and glory we are called to have a share, began his existence in a woman’s womb. The biological process remains a paradigm for ecclesial life. Christ’s birth is both an historical datum and a continuous mystery of transformation. It was not by coincidence that Christians of antiquity adorned the apses of their churches, just above the altar, with wondrous representations of the Theotokos. The Church, Lumen Gentium teaches us, is Marian in essence. This, too, points to a gendered specificity that seeks coherent expression. Only therein will we as believers and members of the Church, whether we are women or men, find our true, essential form. In this symbolic, sacramental interaction of masculinity and femininity, fundamental to Catholic life, we shall find, of this I am convinced, the true response to painful perplexities present in our time. This response is already formulated, thank God; it needn’t be invented anew. From a homily for 8 September.
