Mary, Mother of God January 1, 2025
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
What do you keep? What in your life and experiences and memories do you store up, hold onto, safeguard? That word, “keep,” has a lot more connotation than just maintaining possession of something. It’s also translated as “treasuring” something. So, like keeping a trophy or keeping something in a safe-deposit box or “keeping” an eye on your small child. There’s value in the thing being kept.
There are lots of memories that we kind of “keep” whether we want to or not, that we can’t forget even if we want to – that’s often a part of trauma. This is not the same thing as treasuring an experience. Mary goes further, too, by “reflecting” on these moments. She doesn’t just remember, she considers, ponders, mulls them over.
The way human memory works sheds light on the power of this practice. We tend to think of memory like a journal or a bit of data in a computer: it just sits there until we pull it out and look at it. Then, when we’re done, we put it back on its shelf or in the hard drive. But human memory is more… organic than that. Brain science shows us that, when we remember something, we recall not just the past event, but also the last time we remembered that same event. Our brains then reprocesses that memory, sometimes adjusting the information. There is an ongoing, living relationship between the past and the present via our memory.
So, every time Mary stopped to ponder these events, she was bringing that past into her present and, in a sense, injecting her present reality into that memory. So, what we choose to “keep,” to treasure in our hearts, especially if we “reflect on” and ponder those moments… those experiences and memories can continue to shape who we are and who we become. Mary was without sin, yes, but her holiness came from her continual reconnection with the things God had done in her life.
When used in this way, we can metaphorically, but accurately call memory the “mother” of our future selves. So again, I ask you, what do you keep? What do you treasure and ponder in your hearts? Answer that question and I can tell you something about who you’ll become. It’s for this reason Jesus warns us about storing up earthly treasure and says “where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”
If we now realize we “keep” and treasure and ponder the wrong sorts of things, this should alarm us, convict us, inspire an appropriate fear or concern in us. The good news, however, is that we don’t have to keep treasuring the wrong things. The readings, Mary’s example, the very liturgical pattern of the Church lay out for us a path of hope.
Let’s start with the liturgy. Today is the octave day, the 8th day of Christmas. That’s why I keep saying “Merry Christmas.” In the eyes of the Church, some events are so significant that one day is not enough. So we celebrate the same thing for 8 days straight. In a sense, today is not just part of the Christmas season, which goes until January 12 this year, no, today is still Christmas Day. It’s fitting that we exercise this kind of treasuring and pondering of Jesus’ birth with Mary as our example, guide, and companion.
Really, this logic of memory-that-shapes-us-right-now is the reason we have our annual cycle of feasts and celebrations. When we follow the Church’s pattern of life, of fasting and feasting, of reflecting and learning, we are training ourselves to treasure the right things and so become more fully ourselves in the best way.
The readings for today also capitalize on this. It’s fitting that Mary, Mother of God is celebrated with a gospel that points us to the mothering power of memory. The second reading is a pithy, memorable way of remembering what God has done for us: “God sent his Son,
born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” See that pattern: child, law, law, child? St. Paul knew the power of memory and poetry. It’s why scripture both contains poetry and often inspires it. Hymns too. Memorizing psalms and poems and hymns, learning them “by heart,” so to speak, is a crucial way to make it part of us. It’s why we should be careful not to become attached to hymns and songs that distort the truth because they have a way of sneaking falsehoods into our identity.
Scripture as a whole is this place of memory, of experiences to treasure and ponder and so be formed. A habit, a lifestyle of “keeping” and “reflecting” on scripture is essential for maturing in the faith and growing into the peaceful, joyful way of life shown us by the saints. Our own memories are often faulty, so we need all the more to go again and again to scripture to restore our recollection of Jesus Christ as well as to integrate the truth ever more deeply into who we are.
Finally, there is Mary herself. The weekend before Christmas, I suggested you make Mary part of your New Year’s resolutions. I repeat that suggestion now. Mary, the perfect disciple, the exemplar of the Church, the queen of heaven, the Mother of God is not an accessory to our Catholic faith. She is as integral to our faith as memory is to our identity. Jesus is the one we remember, treasure, and love, but Mary is very much part of the way we remember him just as she is the way we received him on earth in the first place.
This is the genius of the rosary. It allows us to be with Mary as she keeps and reflects on the events of our salvation. It’s not a matter of “completing” a certain number of prayers, but of allowing the structure to give us some place safe to “keep” the things we treasure. A house is structured and a “womb” might seem confining, but they make life possible. So too do the formulas of prayer, the structure of the liturgy, and the methodology of the rosary give us a place to keep faith alive.
For this new year, I urge you, “keep” these three things, treasure them: First, learn to really follow the liturgical cycles of the Church. Let her institutional memory guide your personal memory. Second, read scripture often. Try to memorize key verses and passages so they become part of you. Third, pray the rosary. Pray it more than you currently do. Pray it alone, pray it with others, pray it badly, pray it as best you can, pray it in bite-sized pieces, pray it with your kids and in the chaos. Why? So that your mother can help you remember who God is, who your Father is, and in turn, who you really are.