Sermon for the Octave Day of Christmas
“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart”
There is a rich fullness to all of the celebrations of Christmas; a kaleidoscope of images in a whirl of sounds and light surrounds us. How do we make sense of it all or indeed of any of it all? It may seem like a whirlwind of things that serve to distract us either to amuse us or destroy us. How are to make sense of the rich fullness of Christmas especially on this The Octave Day of Christmas? It is a day, to be sure, which is also designated in other terms at once secular and sacred. It is The Octave Day of Christmas which brings us home and into the eternal mystery of Christ’s nativity, gathering into one all of the particulars of our Christmas celebrations. It is The Circumcision of Christ which marks another aspect of the mystery of the Incarnation. And to top it off, it is also New Year’s Day so as to bring the secular ordering of time into the mystery of God with us. A rich fullness indeed. How are we to make sense of it all?
We are to be like Mary who having heard “those things which were told them by the shepherds”, “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” She doesn’t just hold onto these things zealously clinging to them as we might to our favourite gifts. No, she keeps them “and ponder[s] them in her heart”. It is a very rich phrase. The things that have been said and heard are weighed and considered; they are thought upon. To ponder is to give something serious consideration. It is to be attentive to the meaning of what has been said and heard, seen and done.
For what are “all these things” which she keeps in her heart? They are all the things which cluster around the angelic announcement to the shepherds about “a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”, a child who is “born this day in the city of David [as] a Saviour, Christ the Lord”. It is “good tidings of great joy”, to be sure, but even more a mystery to be considered. The shepherds say one to another, “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass,” this thing “which the Lord hath made known to us”. They are themselves evangelists, the bearers of good news. They do not keep this to themselves but “made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child”. All who heard it “wondered at those things which were told them”. Mary, too, it seems, but even more she “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart”. That is the mystery of the Church and her purpose and being. We are to be like Mary.
