"Where One's Treasure Lies": Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

Homily for Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
(Second Draft)

This past week
I stopped in at “Auctions by Maggie”
just down the street in Cheviot.

It was the first time I visited the place.
On the afternoon that I stopped by,
workers were busy…
setting up chairs for the evening auction.
So I went ahead and made myself at home.
I browsed among old kitchen chairs
and livingroom couches;
peered into glass-covered display cases.

There were hundred of items, all were neatly,
if incongruously, arranged:
a cement Buddha was flanked on each side
by tall, ceramic roosters;
a silver crucifix rested alongside a military canteen;
a hunter’s crossbow aimed its lethal arrows
at a troop of dancing, Dresden figurines.

There was quite a hodge-podge of stuff.

After awhile, a woman named Joy introduced herself
and asked if I needed any help.
I told her I was just looking.
Then I asked if she had worked there long.
Fifteen years, she said.

I asked her what’s it like when a house is sold
and the belongings of a lifetime go on the block?

She told me that some families have a difficult time of it.
“They forget,” she said, “that it’s memories, not things,
that are important.”

“Do you like your job?” I asked.
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, yes!” she said.

“What’s the best part?” I asked.

She thought for moment.
“I love it,” she said, “when a relative calls in
and asks if we’ve found something.
It's usually something small.
They’ll say,‘Did you come across a bracelet…
a small, blue-stone bracelet?
My grandmother always wore it on her left arm.
Did you find it?’"

She smiled.
“When I say yes, that person is so happy.
The item is usually of little monetary worth,
but to that individual, at that moment,
it’s everything!”

It was a pleasure meeting Joy
and I’m glad I stopped by and take a look around.

What compelled me to visit an auction barn?

I’m not sure, but I think it had something to do
with New Year’s Eve.
This weekend, as you all know,
we’re saying goodbye to ’05 and hello to ‘06.
For some of us,
saying goodbye to the old year
involves sorting through old memories;
it’s bit like a stroll down the aisle of an auction barn.

You pick up this item, then that item,
and feel the weight of memory in your hand.

What are your memories of 2005?

For many people, unfortunately,
’05 is not a year to remember.

Consider this experience of a man from New Orleans
named James Jackson.
I came across an article about his return to his flood-damaged house the other day.
Here is how a reporter describes end-of-the-year inventory
confronting Mr. Jackson:

James Jackson tosses his family portrait onto the trash pile [on the sidewalk in front of his house]. The family picture lands on an heirloom Bible whose pages are decayed back to pulp. Nearby are ruined videos - of Thanksgivings, his daughter's birthdays, trips to Disney World - and old records that he had danced to with his wife. He was able to make out the label on only one, Stevie Wonder's album called "We Can Work It Out." It almost makes him smile.

What a year: 2005.

A year of overwhelming destruction,
beginning with tsunamies and ending with hurricanes.
A year of wars, troop deployments
and loved ones spending Christmas oversees.

And that’s just the stories in the national news.
Each one of us here
have personal stories to recall as well.
In my own life,
this was the first Christmas
without my Dad.
(So, you’ll have to forgive me
if my perception of this past year
carries with it
a shade of melancholy a bit deeper than usual.)

I know that many individuals and families
in our parish community
are in a similar situation; a sitatution of grief.

It’s a bitter-sweet place in which to find oneself:
a place of conflicting emotions.
And because of those emotions,
the end of the year leaves you feeling torn
between wanting to leave this year behind for good...
yet clinging to certain memories for all you’re worth.


Actually, this a normal reaction to have…
and a very human thing to do.

But I’m here to tell
that it is also a very spiritual thing to do.

In times of transition, confusion or sadness,
the tender memories we are drawn to
provide momentary opportunities for grace.

We are all drawn to cling to certain memories
because of the grace those memories contain.
memories of love and inspiration
that sustain us and us hope.

Let’s take today’s gospel reading as an example.

Is this not what we see in today’s passage
that tells us that Mary “treasured in her heart”
the amazing things that transpired
during a difficult and uncertain time in her life?

Think of that chaotic night
on which they arrived in Bethlehem…
only to end up in a barn!!

Yet, eventually, into the cold air of that drafty cave
blew the warm grace of God...
and once things settle down, the grace was everywhere that Mary looked:

steady and confident grace evident
in the care of good and solid man named Joseph;

soft and tender in the smooth skin of the infant
lying in her arms;

and, especially highlighted in today’s reading:
the amazing grace in the astonished faces
of shepherds taken by surprise…
those rough fellows rushing to the cave
and tripping over their words
as they try to get across
what they just went through out in the field,
an experience of angel music falling about them
like stars from the sky...

imagine the look on their faces…
a scene that Mary would never forget…
the moment when expressions of tenderness
came upon the weathered features of rustic field hands,
tough cowboys stumbling over water troughs and pitch forks
then falling on their knees at the sight of the bundled infant
resting on her lap.

Never would she forget the expressions
on the faces of those men.

(And can you see her smile?...A smile
that would visit her face
each time that memory was retrieved…
that memory of grace barging in
on her family on a cold winter night
at the end of a long and disconcerting year?)

That’s part of what this gospel is teaching us today:

The grace is there. It’s always there.
Beneath the memories. Next to the heart.

Sometimes it barges through the door
like field hands giving a whoop and a holler.

Sometimes it’s a soft as moonlight light streaming
through a bedroom window.

Other times, it shows up in e-mails and answering machines.

That’s what I experienced just the other day.

The past Wednesday
there was a message on my answering machine.
The voice was that of a good friend name Michael Barga:

"Father,” he said, “Gwenn had the baby last night.
It's a boy. Levi David.
Call us when you get the chance."

Well, what a good way to start the new year!
I can’t wait to meet Levi David.
The memory of that phone message makes me smile.

But, of course, the good news doesn’t replace the bad.
I can’t deny the sorrow that 2005 brought to me….
My dad is gone and no one will ever take his place.
There is no way to gloss over that pain.

Yet the gospel today assures me
that grace remains.
And God’s promise remains…
His promise that someday,
in that place called heaven,
healing with take hold
and all that is wrong in life
is going to be set right.

So, I put my trust in that promise.
It’s not always easy,
but I have to say Mary, our Blessed Mother,
helps me to do so.

She treasured the ways in which God’s subtle grace
imbued her world.

She received God’s grace
and was filled with grace
and no winter night without a bed
would keep her from seeing it.

And in years ahead,
no fear of angry crowds,
no taunt of Roman soldiers
would shake her faith in God’s promise to save us.

She is telling us today
that the memories that crowd in on us
at the end of the year
are less like those of an auction barn
and more like those of a stable..

that stable in Bethlehem wherein
the promise of humanity’s salvation
was heard in the cry of a newborn child.

Mary is reminding that it’s amazing,
just amazing,
all the places and all the ways
that amazing grace appears.

I hope the grace in your life
is as evident as the grace in mine:

”Father, it’s Michael.
It’s a boy! His name's Levi.
Call us when you get the chance."