Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 6 of Season 6 for the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God: Jan. 1, 2023. Our Gospel reading is from Luke, Chapter 2, verses 16-21
The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.
When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
The Gospel of the Lord
“Mary’s Wisdom” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut
And here we are once again at the time of New Year's resolutions. It is quite natural at this point in our time schedule to look back on the past year and to look forward to the next year and perhaps maybe consider a few things in our lives that need some adjusting. We went through this same process last year when we considered our lives the year before and considered what we may want to adjust or do differently this year. Well, how did we do in 2022 with our 2022 New Year's resolutions? Some of us did very well. Some of us didn't have any, for some, it's been business as usual.
But we have to admit that life comes at us whether we like it or not, and sometimes life comes at us pretty fast, and we have to do a lot of thinking on our feet and some reacting on our feet. And sometimes, what happens as life comes at us, the first person we consider is ourselves and what the impact of the experience is gonna have on us. And so we do one of several things. You know, if we have an unexpected hurdle, let's say we need to get a job accomplished, and we encounter this unexpected glitch, something isn't where it's supposed to be, and we go into this, "why is this happening to me now? Couldn't it be something different now? What's going on? It seems every time I do this, this thing doesn't work right." Or we can have something happen to us or encounter an experience and it catches us a bit off guard, and we immediately go to it from a point of fear: oh, I'm scared and terrified by this thing that is happening to me. I don't know how to deal with it. It worries me, and so, therefore, my impulse is fear.
So when life comes at us, what are our knee-jerk reactions to those experiences? And they're the little ones that sometimes happen day after day. And then there's the big ones that can really blow us over. How do we process life? It's a good question to ask as we start yet a new year. How do we process life? Because it's easy to put ourselves front and center in that in terms of its impact solely on me.
Mary reflected on these things and carried them in her heart. She was just told that she gave birth to the son of God, the message of the angel said. I mean, she could have had a, why is this happening to me? This is an awful place to be right now. I want to be home, but yet I'm in this foreign land. I'm not ready to accept this responsibility. Now it's really true. This is who it is. It could have been all of those things. Or she could have been afraid, oh, I can't do this. I'm scared. I don't have the ability to give birth to the son of God.
But she just treasured all of these things and held them in her heart and went one step, one step, one step slowly through the experience as it played out. Always faithful to her relationship with God. Never self-absorbed. Never self-absorbed. See, this is you look at the Blessed Mother and one of the greatest gifts that she can share with us is her attentiveness, not to herself, but to God and the experiences of her life. And if you look at all of the stuff that she encountered along the way, it was that reflective attentiveness that really brings her to focus as a model of faith and fidelity, a model of love.
You know, as we gather here today on this very special feast in her honor. We can learn a lot from the wisdom of attentiveness, of stepping back from the self-absorption we bring to life experience, to stepping back from our knee-jerk reactions that so often color our experiences of life, and to begin to try to reflect and bring that prayerful attentiveness to all that we encounter in every phase of who we are.
You know, Mary also, in a very special way, puts herself at our service as the church puts itself at our service, to point us in a couple of directions that we can often lose sight of, which is important to recall today as we begin a new year. The first is the value of human life, the value of humans, and the destiny of human life; where we're going. You know, Mary points to those two great things. The gift of human life and its value and where it's going. And as we begin a new year, it's important for us to recall that as well, of just our inherent dignity as children of God and the road that we are on. It's not a road that ends in this secular. It's a road that goes far beyond this to experiences unimaginable to us at this point, and Mary stirs us on in the hope: cling to that, she says to us as a tender mother, clinging to that hope, even if life gets difficult, even if it get s challenging, even if it becomes disappointing, cling to that hope of who you are and who God has made you to be.
And so if you look to the Blessed Mother, her attentiveness of life, what she's teaching us as the value of human life and our inherent dignity, and where we're headed, there's a few takeaways that we can bring to our New Year's resolutions and some takeaways that can be brought to any experience that we have in life. The first is always fulfill our obligations always fulfill our obligations. Whatever our obligations, as Mary was the bearer of God, we are meant to be bearers of God as well. Life is never just about us. We have this bigger picture to who we are. We're called to bear God to the world and so fulfill our obligations as God bearers as livers of the Gospel, first and foremost.
Second, thing she can teach us: put aside our sinful ways. We can get so caught up in ourselves. So caught up in destructive habits and behaviors. Mary reminds us to put those things aside. Don't fall into apathy. Don't fall into doubt. Don't fall into despair. Don't become self-absorbed. Don't put yourself at the center of life. Put aside your sinful ways.
And then, lastly, live our true identity and dignity as a child of God. To make that first and foremost in our minds and hearts. You know, every human being needs the tender role model of a mother in order to be taught the gentleness and the intimacy of life. We need someone who can teach us that. But we also need a mother of our souls, and Mary is the perfect person to step in for that role because, as the mother of mothers and the mother of God, she alone knows the matters of the human heart. She knows what it is to face pain. She knows what it is to be called upon to do something that we're not quite prepared to do. She alone knows how to listen, and she knows the value and the grace of tears. Allow Mary to be the mother of your soul. Take wisdom from her example. Fulfill our obligations. Put aside our sinful ways, and live our true dignity as children of God.
Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.