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KIDANE
MHRET We are called today to thank God for the many favors that he has granted to his daughter, Mother and tabernacle Mary, and through Mary to each one of us. From the very beginning, when Adam was about to be chased out of Eden God cursed the serpent by the promise that he was setting an eternal enmity among “the” woman, the serpent’s seed and “the” woman’s seed, and that through her seed “the woman” was to overpower him and crash its head. Since sin had entered the world through the weakness of a woman, God wanted that also redemption would enter the world through the cooperation of a woman (“When the fullness of time came God sent his Son born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal.4:4)). And if we say that the events before the coming of Jesus were preparing his coming into this world, we can reasonably say that Mary also was announced in these same events. For example, if the manna which fed the Israelites in the desert for forty years was a symbol of the Eucharist, the greatest gift of Jesus to humanity that helps us today cross our way through the desert of this world, Mary is the precious vessel that contained the manna, which was kept in the Holy of Holiest portion of Solomon’s Temple. Because we express our appreciation of an object by keeping it in an ornate and beautiful container, and in fact the more precious the content the more precious is the container, in the same way God wanted to express his infinite appreciation to his Son who had accepted to become human in Mary, by preparing for him a Mother for generations. Our liturgy prays by saying: Anti w’etu mesobe werqi ntsuh ‘ente wstieta menna Hebu’e H’best zewerede emsemayat wehabie Hiwet lekullu Alem. You are the purest golden vessel containing the Manna, food from heaven, which gives life to the whole world. Only
a God could prepare and work in her human soul, spirit and
body to make her worthy to
contain a God. Just like you choose
for your child the best your love can offer and your money
can buy, the same did God for his Son. Our liturgy expresses
this
in a beautiful way when it says: “God searched for you, and
looked East and West, North and South to see if there was another
one more worthy than you, but he did not find another one. He smelled
your scent and loved it and fell in love with you.” (Eucharistic
Prayer of Mary) a. he preserved her from the original sin and any other actual
sin, She is the one that even before giving birth to Jesus, God sent an angel to greet her: FULL OF GRACE, her contemporary Elizabeth greeted her as BLESSED AMONG WOMEN and she herself profesized that all generations will proclaim her BLESSED as we are called to do on her feastdays. She is the one whom Jesus, who calls God his natural and only Father, called his “MOTHER”. To her Jesus showed her full human weakness when, as a child, he completely depended on her for food, love and care. Our liturgy expresses this very beautifully when it sings: “Ansesowe gehade, weaster’aye keme seb’e wekeme Hetsanat bekeye enze yse’el em’aTbate ‘emmu sisaye… He searched explicitly, and shoed as a human. He cried like any child searched asking for milk from his mother’s breast.” And through that milked he sacked love, concern, the heart’s concerns of a mother, he came to feel directly for the whole humanity. A child grown with such care, love and attention is only natural to be equally loving, caring and attentive to his parents. In fact, the Bible summarizes it in few words saying: “And the child went to Nazareth with his parents and was subject to them.” (Lk 2:51) In our eastern parlance we know what an obedient child means: loving, attentive, caring etc. We can confidently say that this loving and mutually caring attention between mother and son never ceased, even when Jesus grew up. The case of Cana of Galilee is a unique example: Jesus was so obedient to his mother that he did not mind to make an exception and apparently change his plan for the sake of his mother. In fact, this event gave Jesus a unique case to show his mother the very depth of his love and care, and in return Jesus was rewarded by the belief of his disciples. After the wedding celebrations were over, Jesus together with his mother and his disciples went to Capernaum where they stayed a few days. (John 2:12) Why? Because Jesus wanted to spend a few days with his mother, enjoying her food and care, sharing with her his first experiences in the outer world, introducing to her his first disciples, and his mother to them. And since the main field of his apostolic work was in Galilee, Jesus had a few more chances to visit Capernaum, and therefore to visit Mary his mother. This is proven also by the very fact that when Jesus on the cross that his mother and the disciple that he loved where at his foot, he entrusted them to each other. And the Gospel tells us that: “From that moment the disciple took her unto his own home.” (John 19:27). What does this imply? That until then Mary was not alone but that Jesus was with her, even if not continuously, at least frequently enough to make not feel lonely. approach him with the same attitude. Sometimes we complain that the Bible does not say enough about Jesus relations with his mother. But actually, it tells us plenty of what we need to hear: The above example is one case. So the Gospel tells us the origins of the true devotion to Mary: We honor and love her because Jesus honored and loved her first, and he taught us to do so. Jesus showed his love by being obedient to her and by spending time with her: those are the two keys of the real devotion to Mary. So
let us ask Mary herself how we can obedient to her, and she
will show it to us exactly the same way as she
showed
it to the
waiters at the wedding of Cana of Galilee: “Do whatever he
tells you to do” Remember these are the last written
words of Mary in the Gospel. They are the testament of
Mary to his
disciples. Obedience to Mary means obedience to Jesus,
obedience to Jesus
means to have the heart open to Mary. |
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