Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – 19th January 2025
It may look and sound a little strange having just celebrated Advent and Christmas to find ourselves at a wedding with Mary and Jesus; but here we are!
Mary is not only central to Advent and to Christmas, she is central to God’s whole plan for humanity. It is through her faithful ‘Yes’ that Jesus is born. It is when she visits her cousin Elizabeth that Mary breaks into song and proclaims her great prayer, ‘The Magnificat.’ In the gospels we are not actually given a lot of details or information about Mary. We know however that she followed Jesus as he preached and healed people. She saw him being betrayed, denied, arrested and condemned. She was there at the cross with the other women when he died.
She buried her son and then, at Pentecost, she was there when the friends and followers of Jesus were filled with the Holy Spirit. Mary is truly the example of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. She asks us to do what she herself did all her life: she followed her Son faithfully with courage and conviction even when it was difficult and challenging. In the Gospel of Mark, we even read that the family of Jesus came for him because they thought he was out of his mind!