Homily for Solemnity of Mary Help of Christians

Homily for Solemnity of
Mary Help of Christians

May 24, 2022
Rev 12: 1-3, 7-12, 17
John 2: 1-11
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, New Rochelle

“A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun” (Rev 12: 1).

Mary Help of Christians

(Church of the Sacred Heart, Rome)

The sign described by John the Visionary may be interpreted in several ways, as has been done since the Fathers of the Church.  The woman may be taken to be the ancient people of God, brilliantly illumed by divine light, crowned with the 12 stars of the tribes of Israel.  She gives birth to the Messiah.

The woman may also be seen as the new Israel of God, the Christian people enlightened by the 12 apostles.  From this people comes the Messiah.  According to St. Gregory the Great:  “The sun stands for the light of truth, and the moon for the transitoriness of temporal things; the holy Church is clothed like the sun because she is protected by the splendor of supernatural truth, and she has the moon under her feet because she is above all earthly things” (Moralia, 34, 12).

In either interpretation, the dragon, enemy of God and his people from the beginning of creation, makes war on them, striving to destroy them, as did the Assyrian and Syrian empires in the Old Testament and the Roman Empire when Revelation was being composed.  “The dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus” (Rev 12:17).

Yet another interpretation, apropos of today, is that the woman is the Virgin Mother, crowned by God with glory, surrounded by 12 apostolic stars, giving birth to and protecting numerous offspring—who are assaulted by Satan and his demonic allies.

God has given his people another defender, Michael, leader of the loyal angels.  He and his angels are victorious, for they fight in God’s name and with God’s power, and the woman shares in that victory.  That’s why in so many places today the prayer to St. Michael is said before or after Mass.

The mother of Jesus at Cana gives us the clue to victory in the fight against the Devil.  That’s her simple directive to the household servants at the wedding feast:  “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).  The news from Pres. Biden’s visit to Japan has reminded us of the U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward China.  Call Mary’s words “strategic ambiguity”—because surely she doesn’t know how Jesus will answer her request, how he’ll rescue the precarious situation at hand.  It’s ambiguous.

But what better strategy could she have planned?  What better advice could the mother of Jesus, the woman clothed with the sun, give us, the servants of the household of God, than to do whatever he tells us?

That, in fact, was the story of her own life, from the moment she said, “Let it be done to me as you say” (Luke 1:38).  With her fiat she let the power of God loose among the human race, as her instruction to the servants let the power of her Son loose at Cana for the accomplishment of his hour (John 2:4), for the 1st of his signs (2:11) that would culminate in his cross and resurrection.

When we respond like the servants at Cana and do whatever Jesus will tell us—it’s always a strategic ambiguity because God’s ways are unknown and mysterious—the power of Christ is let loose in our lives.  Jesus can do great things in us (cf. Luke 1:49), even in our lowly selves (Luke 1:48), when we give him our own fiat, when we try to “keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus.”