20250908 MARY MODEL OF FAITH
08 September 2025, Monday, Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary
First reading | Micah 5:1-4 |
He will stand and feed his flock with the power of the Lord
The Lord says this:
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
the least of the clans of Judah,
out of you will be born for me
the one who is to rule over Israel;
his origin goes back to the distant past,
to the days of old.
The Lord is therefore going to abandon them
till the time when she who is to give birth gives birth.
Then the remnant of his brothers will come back
to the sons of Israel.
He will stand and feed his flock
with the power of the Lord,
with the majesty of the name of his God.
They will live secure, for from then on he will extend his power
to the ends of the land.
He himself will be peace.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 12(13):6-7 |
I exult for joy in the Lord.
Lord, I trust in your merciful love.
Let my heart rejoice in your saving help.
I exult for joy in the Lord.
Let me sing to the Lord for his goodness to me,
singing psalms to the name of the Lord, the Most High.
I exult for joy in the Lord.
Gospel Acclamation |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Blessed are you, holy Virgin Mary,
and most worthy of all praise,
for the sun of justice, Christ our God,
was born of you.
Alleluia!
Gospel |
Matthew 1:1-16,18-23 |
The ancestry and conception of Jesus Christ
A genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, Tamar being their mother,
Perez was the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram was the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon was the father of Boaz, Rahab being his mother,
Boaz was the father of Obed, Ruth being his mother,
Obed was the father of Jesse;
and Jesse was the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,
Solomon was the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa,
Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Joram,
Joram the father of Azariah,
Azariah was the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah;
and Josiah was the father of Jechoniah and his brothers.
Then the deportation to Babylon took place.
After the deportation to Babylon:
Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud,
Abiud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
Azor was the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Achim,
Achim the father of Eliud,
Eliud was the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob;
and Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary;
of her was born Jesus who is called Christ.
This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph; being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’ Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son
and they will call him Emmanuel,
a name which means ‘God-is-with-us.’
MARY MODEL OF FAITH
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [MICAH 5; 1-4; MATTHEW 1:1-16, 18-23]
Many Catholics profess the faith of the Church publicly, but only verbally. While many Catholics assent to the beliefs of the Church as expressed in the Creed, many do not personally embrace the faith. If there is any conviction, it remains on the level of intellectual faith, rather than a personal one. Our lack of faith is often disguised and camouflaged by hiding behind the faith of the Church. For this reason, the English translation of the Credo at Mass has now reverted to ‘I believe’ rather than ‘We believe.’ Unless each person personally believes what he or she professes, there is no true ‘we’ belief.
Indeed, there are three levels of faith. The first level is believing in the sense of accepting the facts. It is to believe, for example, that God exists. But even demons believe that God exists. This level of faith, however, is not yet true faith. We must move to the second level, which is to believe in God who exists. To believe in someone is to trust in someone, not just on the intellectual level but on the level of the heart. When we say we believe in someone, we mean that we trust them enough to give our lives and our hearts to them.
Hence, faith is more than just an acceptance of the beliefs, that is, a set of doctrines or teachings of the Church. The faith that precedes beliefs is the personal faith in Christ as our Saviour and Lord. Through this faith, we are given the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Sonship, which enables us to share in His sonship–an experience of God as our loving Father. It is this personal conviction that brings about our identity as sons and daughters in Christ, as the second reading tells us: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”
But this is deficient faith if it does not result in good works and charity. Faith without good works is dead, as St. James says. Good works are not the basis for salvation, but rather the fruits of salvation. So, if one claims to have faith in Christ and is therefore justified by Him, this claim must be verified by a life of charity. When there are no fruits, this claim cannot be true, because anyone who is loved and forgiven by God, and who has received the Holy Spirit, will necessarily produce the fruits of the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul lists in Galatians. This explains why the response to the Creed at our baptism and on Easter Vigil is “I do”, not “I believe”. “I do” is a verb, not a noun. To believe is to live out what one believes. The full maturity of faith is seen when we live out what we believe, manifested in charity. This is the kind of personal faith that can be considered true faith.
It is within this context that we turn to Mary as the model of Christian Faith. Mary, in the understanding and appreciation of the Church, is the exemplar of Christian faith. Just as Abraham is our father in faith, so too is Mary our model of faith. In her life, Mary exemplified the three dimensions of faith: believing in terms of content, believing in the sense of trusting in God, and believing as a way of life that flows from her faith in the God who reveals Himself, and her total trust in Him. How, then, is she our example of faith?
Firstly, the first reading tells us that she was one of the Anawim. The Anawim refers to the very poor of Israel–those of lowly status, marginalized, and with nothing but their dependence on the Lord. They were also those who remained faithful to the Lord, living in expectation of His coming. Mary was such a person. She lived as a faithful daughter of God, awaiting the coming of the Lord. She existed entirely in dependence on the Lord, both in spirit and in fact. In the Magnificat, she attributed all her blessings to the Lord, especially the privilege of being chosen to be the mother of the Saviour. It was the Lord who had done great things for her in her lowliness. She was a true Anawim of the Lord.
She was a model of personal faith in the Lord. She trusted in the words of the angel, as Elizabeth remarked, “Blessed is she who believed that the Lord would fulfil His promises to her!” (Lk 1:45). Her trust in the Lord enabled her to endure all the trials of her life–from the persecution of Herod, to the rejections and misunderstandings of her Son’s mission by family members, and right up to the cross, when He was not only rejected by His enemies but betrayed by His friends. Through all these tests, Mary remained faithful to the Lord, trusting that He would deliver her from her enemies. She never lost hope in the Lord, remaining patient in her sufferings and trials. She believed, as St. Paul said in the second reading: “We know that by turning everything to their good God co-operates with all those who love him, with all those that he has called according to his purpose … And also He called those he intended for this; those he called he justified, and with those he justified he shared his glory.”
Secondly, she was a model of obedience in faith. The response to God’s call is always one of obedience, as was the case with Abraham. When God called Mary to be the Mother of the Saviour, her immediate response was, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord!” Her fiat–her willing acceptance to do God’s will–was something she carried throughout her entire life. She was solely concerned with obeying the will of God, in imitation of her Son, who emptied Himself to come into the world in His kenosis. And when her Son told her that His time had not yet come to perform the miracle of turning water into wine, she simply said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you!” She did not press Him or try to persuade Him to act before His time. But because of her total faith in Him, He revealed His glory by changing the water into wine. For this reason, the Lord said, “Blessed is she who hears the Word of God and does it.”
Thirdly, Mary was a model of charity. Her faith was not individualistic. Rather, it was expressed through a life of charity. She was always focused on others, just like her Son. Even when told that she would be the mother of the Saviour, she did not spend time resting on her laurels or contemplating her future. Instead, she was more concerned about the pregnancy of Elizabeth in her old age than about herself. At the wedding in Cana, instead of focusing on enjoying herself, she was attentive to the needs of the host. Anticipating the host’s potential social embarrassment, she took it upon herself, without being asked, to intercede with her Son to save the event. Most of all, her charity was evident in her forgiveness at the cross. There, she forgave all those who had crucified her only Son. She did not harbour hatred or anger against those who had hurt her. Like her Son, she forgave freely and unconditionally.
What was the secret of Mary in living the three levels of faith, of beliefs, of trust and of love? At the heart of Mary’s faith was her contemplative prayer life. She was always, as the Gospel describes her, a woman who ‘pondered’ the Word of God and reflected on her Son. She spoke little but was always in quiet contemplation and love for the Lord. If Mary shared in the glorious resurrection of our Lord at her Assumption, it was because she shared the life of Jesus, her Son, so intimately–mirroring Him in every area of her life, whether in faith or in charity.
As we celebrate her birthday, we too are called to be like her – offering our lives as a gift to God and as a living sacrifice to our fellowmen. We are called to empty ourselves and become poor in Christ, so that we can identify with every person. Life is a gift from God, and our life is our gift to Him. We truly live only when we die to ourselves and offer our entire being in service and love to others.
So in total trust in the Lord and in obedience to His personal call to each one of us, we are called to imitate both Mary and her Son in our response to the Father’s love for us. Like Mary and Joseph, we are called to trust in the Lord’s will for us. Just as Joseph, in the Gospel, entrusted his future and that of Mary to the Lord’s providential care, so too, in whatever happens to us, we are called to live by faith, trusting in the Lord’s will, His divine mercy, and His care for us. We must believe that, regardless of what happens in our lives, it will ultimately work for our good, even if we cannot immediately perceive the good. As St. Paul says, “We walk by faith, not by sight.”
We can do this only because we believe that this God is the Almighty Father who sends us His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, conceived in the womb of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. This same Spirit is now given to the Church through baptism, to all who believe, making us adopted sons and daughters of God through Christ, who, by His passion, death, and resurrection, has saved us from our sins and granted us eternal life. Let our faith, then, grow into full maturity–a faith that believes, a faith that trusts, and a faith that is lived in charity.
Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections
- Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
- Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
- It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.
Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment