Psallam​​ TIBI​

PULCHRAM FACIEM HUMILITATIS

 

 

THE BEAUTIFUL FACE OF HUMILITY is the countenance of the Blessed Virgin, which shines through the short Gospel of the feast of her Presentation, confounding those that incessantly seek to derogate the example she sets for us who have been made her adoptive children in Christ. How much slander shall the Mother of God take? The answer is all, and more, and readily so; for far from ever seeking her own glory, she has always shown herself the most demurred of the servants of God, as our reading of today’s Gospel articulates with such precision.

 

Far from being denied and dismissed by her Son, we see a woman who truly understands the precedence that must be given to the mission of Jesus in the world. And there was no one more intimately acquainted with that mission than she to whom the Angel of the Lord had revealed the divine origin and purpose of the child she was to bear. Would she, who in that startling moment submitted herself completely to the will of God, now so uncharacteristically seek to detract from the very work that she bore him to achieve? We learn, here, from her docility, the need for an understanding of God’s will that is accepted without question, and then pondered in the heart, to bear fruit that is the very image of divine love. Which one of the disciples in the lifetime of their Lord fully understood His will and acted always in accordance with it? Even Peter, the prince of apostles, was chastised on more than one occasion, and indeed went on to deny his Lord in the hour of His greatest suffering. Christ had no need to ask His mother, “Who do you say I am?” because the Christ, the Living God had made her His dwelling place.

 

One aware of their status and desirous to assert it, might well have just walked into the gathering to speak to Christ. Our Lady did not. She stood at the sidelines and one of the crowd, seeing her desire to speak with her Son, approached the Lord on her behalf. In all her actions, Mary seeks nothing for herself, she detracts nothing from her Son, but is the embodiment of humility and piety. And Jesus uses this as an opportunity to teach. Just as he gave his mother to us from the cross through the apostle John, so here he gives his mother as a paragon of virtue to which all men must aspire. How much we must learn from Mary’s humble deference to Christ! That it should always be Him who speaks before we seek to make our point heard. How much the disciples would learn, and we with them, from this scene! That the very nature of our discipleship is never to assert our will but to learn at the feet of the Master, and so become His instruments of truth. How much we need to understand about our relationship with the Saviour! That we are the elect, by Him elected, and not by our own jostling for superiority.

 

Today’s Gospel speaks to the potential in each of us to achieve a communion with Christ that is worthy of the kinship with God that He wrought for us. Not one of us here today can adjudge ourselves on par with the Blessed Virgin; not in merit, not in love for Jesus, and never in the intimacy of the flesh that is the unique bond between a mother and the fruit of her womb. But one thing we can be sure of is that Jesus’ love for us is the same impenetrable love that He has for his mother and for all mankind. And it is this love that elevates us to the status of adopted sons of God and co-heirs in Christ Jesus.

 

So who is the family of Christ? We, who follow in His ways and walk His path to the Father’s house. And from whence did such kinship with God spring? From nowhere but the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary; for it was her fiat that brought to fruition God’s plan of salvation, it was her humble acceptance of the will of the Father that brought about the Incarnation, and it is through God-made-man that all men are made sons of God. No one before her, nor since, has ever so perfectly surrendered to the Father’s will. And by Christ’s own measure in today’s Gospel – “For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother” – there is no more worthy kin of Christ than His own Blessed Mother.

 

Today, as we commemorate her Presentation at the Temple, we remember a life that was perfectly dedicated to the service of God. We come to realise that, in the lowly and insignificant, Christ makes His most perfect home. There would have been nothing special or extraordinary about Mary’s Presentation. She was, after all, just a girl of unremarkable parentage. Nothing about her would mark her out as chosen by God for the most immense vocation that any of His creation had ever undertaken. In her life also, Mary never once sought for herself even the slightest share in her Son’s glory as God Incarnate. And it is this humility, this unselfish love, this complete acquiescence with God’s will that Christ hails today as the hallmark of all those that would call themselves His disciples.