Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today, we’ve transferred the Feast of Saint Mary to Sunday. We don’t transfer feasts as often as I’d like to but it does confuse things if you do it too often. This one though I think we should mark.

There are all sorts of ways people have thought about, prayed with, and theologized about Mary. She has a long list of titles that are profound and deep. These include Our Lady of Sorrows, She Who Shows the Way, Star of the Sea, Queen of the Apostles, and many more. They are poetic and evocative — and they all point toward Jesus.

The reason we mark Mary’s maternal sorrow is because it was grief for Our Lord. She who shows the Way points toward the Way, the truth, and the life. She is the Star of the Sea because she is the guiding star pointing toward Christ.

She was Queen of the Apostles because she showed those first followers how to follow. She tells those around her, “do as he commands” at the first miracle at Cana. She never tries to take Jesus’s glory onto herself but always points back toward him.

For this reason she has been revered.

She also stands in for each of us. She tells each of us how to follow Jesus—how we too might bear him for the world around us. In her humanity she stands on the fulcrum, the crux, in the vortex of humanity’s choice.

She is asked by God, “can you do this?” Her answer changes the course of history—and changes us too.

For God is still asking those called to bear Christ, “Can you do this?”

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert