A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph. But before they had come together and lived together, she was found with child through the power of the holy spirit. That is one sentence, and what a sentence that is.
Now Joseph, her husband, who was an upright man and unwilling to expose her to the law, decided to divorce Mary quietly. Such was his intention when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to him, and said, Joseph, son of David, have no fear about taking Mary as your wife. It is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived this child. She is to have a son, and you are to name him Jesus in as much as he will save his people from sin. All of this happened to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet, the virgin shall be with child and give birth to a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel, a name which means God is with us.
And this is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. After Ronald Knox, familiarly known as Ronnie, became a Catholic and then was ordained a priest, he made a vow. At least he says he did.
We have this in writing with from his own hand. He made a vow that he would never preach anything in the by the in the way of a sermon without some way or other bringing in the blessed mother. I just read that yesterday, and then the thought struck little old me how seldom I mentioned the blessed mother from this pulpit from this pulpit. I come up here willy nilly every Sunday at 07:30, and as many as Sunday I never mentioned the Blessed Mother at all. When I think back over the last few Sundays, can't recall bringing her into my remarks because they did there didn't seem to be any reason in the context of what I was trying to say, to bring our Blessed Mother in.
That's a mistake. I should that little sentence of monox really set me back that he, from the day he was ordained, made a vow that he would never preach a sermon of any sort without in some way bringing in the blessed mother. Now, immediately I thought of our holy father. I still look upon him as the successor of Saint Peter, and and in that regard he has more or less some authority, at least that's my private opinion these days. And you'll notice that from what I read of his sermons, wherever they be, for example his weekly discourse at Saint Peter's, he always brings in the Blessed Mother some way or other.
Now sometimes it's a little artificial, but it's there. And then again I think, how seldom I do that? Now you'll say, Well, yeah, but if you're talking about making cheese it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to talk about the brewer or something. You know, that's kind of good logic, but logic isn't everything. Logic only means consistency.
And how can we today And let me tell you the reason Knox said that Now this is a this is around right after the first world war. Why do you think Knox made that vow? He did it because he said that attention, that thoughtfulness, devotion to the Blessed Mother had was dwindling. She was being forgotten. Now if he could if he saw the situation in that light when he did, and he thought that he ought to do something about it, what do you think he'd have to say in 1986?
When the Blessed Mother is almost totally forgotten in many many ways, in many We go through the whole month of May now with scarcely a thought of her. In my home we had a little altar to the Blessed Mother. I mean a permanent one. A little little niche in some corner of a room, and there would be a vigil light there, and then if there were any flowers they'd be put there. This this was commonplace.
Just it was commonplace to have a crucifix in your home. Well of course these things have gone many instances, in many instances. So anyway the thought struck me that I've been delinquent. This is only one of the areas where I've been delinquent, let me hasten to add. But this is one of them, and I think we ought to do something about it.
Now, you see, I'm perfectly well aware of the problems here. Most non Catholics, when they become Catholics, one of their I mean, I'm talking about good honest to God people, sincere and people of some intelligence. A stumbling block is the Catholic devotion to Mary. Because in many instances it has been exaggerated. Let's face it.
We're human beings and we we tend to exaggeration. If you go down into South American countries, you're almost sure to get that impression. If you go to Mexico, practically every taxi driver will have a little image of our blessed lady there. Almost invariably, he may not go to mass, he may be married two or three times, but he does have the image of our blessed mother there. I know that this can be overdone.
But you see, the abuse of something good does not destroy the good thing itself, and this is a principle we've got to keep in our head. Just because you use a fine piece of sterling, a sterling silver knife and use it as a screwdriver, that's your dumbness. Don't blame it on sterling silver. There's nothing wrong with sterling silver. It's your abuse of the silver that is to be condemned.
And so we come back to our Blessed Lady. Certainly the mind of the holy Roman Catholic church is that we should have a devotion to Mary. How can you escape it? I never will forget when sergeant Shriver, by a strange concatenation of circumstances, I'm was nominated to be vice president. It was done rather suddenly, as some of you may recall, and there was a big gathering, one of the big hotels in Washington for the the big gala, for the big kickoff.
And we were invited to attend, and it was a fine affair. But let me tell you, who got the biggest I'm not exaggerating this. If any of you haven't been there, you'll know I'm speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as is my custom. Who got the biggest applause that evening? It was when his mother walked on the stage, that fine dignified elegant old lady.
When she was presented to the audience, she got the biggest applause of the whole evening. Was that derogatory to her son, Sergeant Shriver sitting there? It wasn't very visible. He didn't look downcast or sad when his mother was so well applauded. How can you oh, how can you in the least demean a son by honoring the son's mother?
After all, there's a certain relationship of dependency there, I'm assured. Most mothers are mothers because they brought a new human being into the world, which is a quite a feat. And so the Catholic church right down the ages has had this devotion to our Blessed Mother, and there's scarcely a week goes by that there isn't something special in the liturgy about our Blessed Lady. And is there something special in our lives? And I'm the first one to confess, something is gone.
We've missed it. And the first step in doing something about a problem is to see the problem and to know what the problem is. And we should each in our individual lives, daily lives, in the lives we're living, not what we think we'd like to live, or if circumstances would change, and if only that were true, if only this didn't happen, if only I didn't have that to do, That's all nonsense. The thing is to grasp the present and do with the present what you want to do with the present. Be master of your faith in this sense.
And so ask yourself, what is your personal devotion to the mother of God? Just think of that phrase, the mother of God. Not the mother of a body, but the mother of Jesus Christ who is the son of God. One person. And that one person had a mother in a Jewish virgin named Mary.
And the very first miracle that Jesus performed was at her bequest or request, Not at her command. She said nothing. All she did was to turn to the service and says, Whatever he tells you to do, do it. All she had told her son was, my boy, they don't have any more wine. We can't let this happen, can we?
And so let us go back. When did we say our rosary last? Well, some time ago I was at a funeral, awake, and we were there. We came there to say the rosary. And because of certain circumstances there was a big crowd, an overflow crowd.
But there was no overflowing of rosaries. The majority of the people present had no rosary in their hand at all. And if I hadn't been able to get through the creed, there wouldn't have been any creed said. And now these are practical things. This is the situation, but let's do something about it.
May as I've often said, Mary is the mother of God or she's a fraud. Just as if Jesus Christ is not the son of God, he's worse than a fraud. Worse than a fraud. He ought to have been locked up. But if Mary is the mother of God, and Jesus is the son of God, then how in the world can we not have devotion to her?
Because in a sense in which Jesus Christ is not our one of us, Mary is totally one of us. She was as human in every respect as any of us. The difference is she never was guilty in the least of any kind of sin. That's the big difference. But that difference doesn't separate us, it only sets up an ideal that we can head for.
And that Mary, of all women, of all human beings, is in a position to help us do it. We can't do it alone. We have to do it through Jesus Christ. He said that, without me, you can do nothing. And I assure you, the easiest, the surest way of going to Jesus is through his mother, Mary.
In the name of the father, and of the son, and of holy spirit. Amen.