Mary, Mother of God January 1, 2023
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
What is a “person?” There are many questions and debates around personhood. Is it intelligence that makes a person? Free will? A soul? These are all important facets, but for human beings, a person is usually associated with something tangible. You cannot see the essence of a person in the abstract, but you can picture their face, recognize their voice, recall a scent, remember an embrace. Of these, perhaps none is more emblematic of a person than their face.
Babies are naturally interested in human faces. Their brains are hardwired to recognize the basic shape of a face from birth – even before birth, actually. Though we quickly learn to recognize the world around us and the many different things that are part of a person, the face is a particularly powerful manifestation of their humanity. Whether or not you can see the face of another person affects everything from your tendency to objectify that person to how guilty you’d feel if you hurt or killed them. It even explains why, when something non-human too closely resembles a human face, we get creeped out by it – it’s a part of what they call the uncanny valley in the study of aesthetics. The human face is so important that being too close but not quite right is unnerving.
That is part of what makes this season of Christmas so profound. God, who has always been a union of three persons in one divine being, finally takes on a form of personhood that we can easily recognize. He now has a body, a voice, a face that we can see. What makes this day – the octave day of Christmas – so special is that that face wasn’t made up out of thin air, but inherited in part from another human being: Mary.
Have you ever thought about the resemblance between Jesus and Mary? That the face which looked on the poor with love, the eyes that saw into the heart and soul of his followers, the expressions that conveyed both conviction and hope to sinners must have resembled Mary’s? After all, God did not just appear in her womb. The angel said she would conceive, the child in her womb was taken from her flesh, her genetics. His Father, God the Father, provided miraculously the rest of what is human and his divine nature as well. So the face of Jesus must have strongly resembled the face of Mary.
And the face of Jesus is important because it is the face of God. As we see in our first reading, our psalm, and scattered throughout scripture, the ancient Israelites thought often of the face of God. Many verses refer to “seeing the face of God” as something so profound it would cause death on the spot. God encouraged this, even telling Moses to only look at his back lest he die.
And yet, it is that same transcendently powerful face that is invoked in the most-used blessing in all of scripture: “The LORD let his face shine upon you… the LORD look upon you kindly…” The Church’s teaching often describes heaven as the beatific vision, specifically the ability to see God’s face and live.
What is it about God’s face? It is not just about literally seeing eyes and nose and lips… Those who are blind are just as capable of recognizing the personhood of another, yet the face remains the most poignant metaphor for the person. And even if you cannot see it, to be looked at by another person still has meaning. It’s a common experience to feel someone looking at you – even some who are blind have said they know the sensation of being looked at. It’s why the blessing asks God to look upon us kindly and let his face shine on us… there’s something about the face’s ability to project a person and their love.
So, this expression of the face of God is about being able to enter into direct relationship with God, to experience him on a personal and eternal level. Lovers gaze with joy into the face of the one they love and we are destined to be able to do the same with God himself. Mary lends her face to her own child to make that possible. Hence we celebrate this solemn feast of Mary, and call her “the Mother of God.” This title does not make her a God, but simply means that she really is the mother of Jesus and that Jesus really and truly is God… the God who loved us enough to shine his face upon us.
So, what should we do with this information… with this prolonged meditation on the idea of faces, personhood, and the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ? Do what Mary did and “[keep] all these things”, reflecting on them in” our hearts. Here’s a few practical ways to make this a part of the new year and the rest of your life.
First, sacred art! Look at good pictures of Jesus. You may notice that there are certain features many images of Christ have in common. They probably trace back to his literal face. In the original Divine Mercy Image, Sr. Faustina pestered the artist to revise his work several times until he got it just right. Indeed, we have two cloths that show us something about the face of Christ… and the Divine Mercy Image matches them both. People think the Shroud of Turin was debunked in the 80s, but that’s not true. The most careful experts agree… it’s the real thing. Spend some time thinking about the face of Jesus, looking at what it was. And if you have a preferred version of Jesus to look at, that’s fine. But do spend some time with the reality that God took on a human face just so that you could experience his loving gaze.
Second, recognize God in other people. We are all naturally inclined to look more at people we find attractive. That can easily turn into lust if we’re not careful, so I’ll share a great piece of advice a spiritual director once gave me. When you catch yourself looking at attractive people too much, make the conscious decision to look carefully – but not creepily – at other people in the room. Say to yourself “that person is made in God’s image.” Praise God for their uniqueness. Train yourself to see God in the face of other people.
Finally, allow your face to become a reflection of God’s. By baptism, we are his children, supernaturally empowered to resemble God our father and Jesus our brother. Indeed, that’s the point of life, to become like Christ. This can only be accomplished by grace. Spend time with the Lord, soaking in his love. Ask Mary to raise you as she raised Jesus. Forgive as he forgave. Then you will resemble him more and more until, one day, you will look like him and look upon him forever.