Now all of a sudden, it gets really exciting, maybe not for us but for those Jews who were expecting the Messiah, the poor, the humble, the faithful who were no longer out for political power or economic prosperity. They were allowing themselves to be impoverished and oppressed because they knew the Messiah would come and establish justice not by force and violence but by an incredible act of self- sacrifice as both suffering servant and son of man. Then, all of a sudden, in Matthew 1 we read what for the Jews is the most exciting passage of the New Testament, perhaps and what for us is by far the most boring. Oh, no! The begats, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the Jews gasped, "What? Can you prove that?" The son of Abraham, double gasp." Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob." I'm not going to read the whole thing, I promise you, okay?
But notice a few things. For instance, notice in verse 3, Tamar. Notice in verse 5, Rahab. Notice in verse 5, Ruth and notice in verse 6 "David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Four women are mentioned in this genealogy which is very unusual to have women mentioned at all. But what do all four women have in common? Tamar had sex with her father-in-law, Rahab was a harlot. Ruth was a foreigner, a Moabitist, and the wife of Uriah was just that, the wife of Uriah, before the wife of David, before he committed adultery and then committed murder to get rid of Uriah.
In other words Matthew is reminding the Jews of the legacy of David's line. Why? Because what was the scuttlebutt about this young 13-year-old Jewess named Mary getting pregnant before she was married? Messing around, right? Whenever you see in the New Testament, Jesus called "the son of Mary," that's derogatory. Why? It was an illegitimate birth in the eyes of the townspeople, probably. What's Matthew doing? What's new? The appearance of sexual immorality or even the reality of infidelity has never thwarted God's purposes. In the case of sex with the father-in-law, and in the case of a harlot, in the case of a foreign woman and in the case of an adulteress. I mean what more is left?
In other words if God's purposes had been fulfilled through the Davidic monarchy up until now and he didn't complain about David coming from such women and there was Solomon, then this seeming scandal should not throw you too far off. And it goes on, verse 11, "Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation of Babylon." And now all of a sudden some very good information that we never really had absolute certainty about anywhere in the Old Testament, "After the deportation of Babylon, Jechoniah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel," well, we know him. We don't know what happened after him, Abiud, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Natthan, Jacob, "Joseph, the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born who is called the Christ." In other words, we have now the proof that they didn't lose the line. It didn't fizzle out. God didn't forget.
But what was happening? I mean if you were in the Davidic line and you realize it, you stood up and said, "Hey, I'm Davidic!" What would happen? The Babylonians would go squash or the Persians would go squash or the Greeks or the Romans. Why? Because you are a pretender to the throne. Don't give us this Davidic promise, this Davidic authority stuff. Your line is over. So if you have royal blood, not just any old royal blood, but I mean divine right royal blood flowing through your veins, what had you better do? Zip up. Right? You better shut up.
What happens as soon as the word gets out that the Messiah is born? What does King Herod do? "Oh gosh, gee willickers, I've got to go worship." What a stinking liar. He ends up slaughtering dozens and maybe hundreds of infant males to do anything, no matter how diabolical, to put an end to the Davidic line. And Mary knew it all along. And you could actually see a Davidic line as far as she is concerned as you correlate the Mathian and the Lukan genealogies. Now we, I think, understand a little bit better how important and perhaps exciting this must have been to those faithful, humble, poor Jews who had been waiting and waiting and waiting for hundreds and hundreds of years, wondering if God had forgotten. He hasn't. Verse 18, "Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph being a just man not wanting to put her to shame resolved to divorce her quietly. But then the angel appears to him in a dream, 'Joseph, son of David,'" in other words, I want you to begin to figure things out here, Joe. Remember who you are? You're a son of David. Weird things happen to Davidic sons. Okay? "'Joseph, son of David, don't fear to take Mary for your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.' All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 'Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name shall be called, God with us, Emanuel.'"
Joseph probably knew this as well as he knew any verse in the Old Testament because this is one of those few key texts, those few key prophecies on which the anawim hung their hopes. "So he knew her not until she had born a son and he called his name Jesus." And here we go on and we discover that the Magi are sent by God. Now, three Wise Men, it doesn't say they were Wise Men. It calls them the Magi. What are Magi? They are Eastern Sorcerers, probably Persian. There's an old Rabbinic maxim, "If anybody learns anything from a Magi, one of the Magi, let him be accursed." Because they were the practitioners in the Black Arts and some of the tools of their trade, according to Brown and some other scholars, is that they use gold for all their magical pages on which the incantations were written. They used frankincense and they also used myrrh.
These were some of the basic tools of the trade as practitioners in the black art did it. And when they give the stuff up to our Lord in the manger, what are they doing? They are renouncing it. They have followed the light, they have found the truth. But what of the Jews? What about the most knowledgeable of the Jews? The most powerful Jews, the priests in Jerusalem who are in cohoots with Herod, giving him all that he needs to track down the Messiah? Now maybe they didn't know about Herod. Yeah. Maybe they didn't know about Herod. Sure, the guy who kills his mother, kills his brothers, his cousins, murdered 35 members of the Sanhedrin? You trust a jerk like him? Something's wrong.
The Magi and the shepherds, we discover of course, in Luke that the shepherds come to visit. Do you know that the shepherds were looked down upon as the lowest of the low in Hebrew society? Women and shepherds were not allowed to give testimony in a courtroom, but especially shepherds. They were dishonest and they were perverted according to Rabinic sayings. It would be sort of like having a baby and then, all of a sudden your neighbors look out the window as they see the whores and the junkies and the pushers come to your front door. What's going on? You know, property values are decreasing! God has taken the humble and the sinners, those who are in most need of your mercy, and giving mercy and insight and wisdom and so much more. In a sense turning upside down the wisdom and the power of this age and this world.
It goes on, "And Mary is pondering all these things." I mean Magi from Persia, shepherds. God, what are you doing? Well we don't have to go very far to learn. Let's take a look at Luke, chapter 1. We could have lots of fun, by the way, going through the rest of Matthew. You know, chapter 2, we didn't even touch upon all that really - their flight down into Egypt and coming out of Egypt as well. But, let's turn now to Luke, chapter 1. I know we don't have that much time but let's just focus here for a moment.
Here we have Luke who is much less Jewish in his intentions than Matthew. Matthew is writing the gospel for the Jews and the Jewish Christians. Luke is the only Gentile author of a New Testament book. A trained physician, a rather skilled historian, scholars tell us. He is writing all about Jesus, the Son of Man, the son of Adam. Not so much like Matthew, the son of David. He's concerned in his genealogy to take Jesus all the way back to David? No. Abraham? No. Adam - to show that this man is the one who is to redeem the whole world, all nations! After all, Luke's not a Jew.
So it goes on talking about in verse 5, the birth of John the Baptist foretold. We have here the annunciation to Zechariah. And then we have, after the birth of John the Baptist is recorded, the birth of Jesus foretold in the annunciation in verse 26, "In the sixth month, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, 'Hail, full of grace.'" Now that Greek term is translated in various ways. Oh highly favored one, but the grace of God in the New Testament develops and it becomes a kind of substance and not just an attitude; that when God gives favor, it isn't just a feeling. It isn't just a thought. It isn't just a subjective posture or attitude. It's God's own life. So that when God favors you, he didn't just stand back and say, "Eeh, I like ya." He gives himself to you.
So when she is full of God's favor, she is full of God's life and that's the term grace as it develops in the New Testament. So, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you," an absolutely unique address. Never before has an angel addressed somebody almost naming them full of grace. It doesn't say, "Hail, Mary, full of grace." It says, "Hail, full of grace," and it says it almost like a title. Scholars have torn this apart to show the distinctiveness and uniqueness of the address. "The Lord is with you." We could do so much with that, but we have to move on. "She was greatly troubled at this saying and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. 'Don't be afraid, Mary,' the angel said to her, 'for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.'" It goes on, "'He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end.'"
"Mary said to the angel, 'How shall this be since I have no husband?' And the angel said to her. 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you,'" or literally it goes on, "'the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.'" This is what we are going to develop in the 1:30 talk, but I'll mention it now. That word "overshadow" is a rare verb. It's used to describe what the Holy Spirit does over the top of the Ark of the Covenant. And so it doesn't take much scholarship to see the connection that is probably intended by Luke as he recounts this.
The Ark of the Covenant was so sacred because the tablets were in the Ark and the tablets were the decalogue, the word of God, the ten words of God. Now why is Mary the Ark? Because the word has been made flesh and is dwelling among us, but within her. She is the true Ark, the true Ark of the Covenant, the New Covenant. "Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." And then some more and she replies, "'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to your word.' And the angel departed from her." And she makes haste to go visit cousin Elizabeth. And as she walks into the house, John the Baptist, it says, "leaps for joy." And look at 43, "Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
People protest about the phrase theotokos "mother of God." They should see it's got a Biblical precedent in verse 43, "the mother of my Lord. For behold when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." And then, the song of Mary, the magnificent Magnificat! I want you to listen to this like you never heard it before. "My soul magnifies the Lord." All right it's built upon Hannah's song, but it goes far beyond that song in 1st Samuel. "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For henceforth, behold all generations will call me Blessed."
Now just stop a second. It I stood up and said to you, "My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. For he has regarded the low estate of his manservant and henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." Wouldn't you wretch? You'd say, "What's this guy come off. Who is this guy to stand up here and say, 'Henceforth all generations shall call me, not us, me - get that - blessed.'" Now we usually think of Mary as just being humble and poor and faithful and so on - and she is. Humility and modesty do not consist in making yourself into a doormat or disowning God's graces and privileges. It means, in fact, owning them as God's graces and privileges that are given to you to serve others and him.
But with false modesty you say, "Awe, gosh, shucks, gee willickers, I did nothing. I'm just a doormat. Walk on me, you know?" Not Mary. "Henceforth, all generations shall call me Blessed." Who do you think you are, woman? You really want to know? The Queen Mother of the Son of David, because I have been so humble and poor before the Lord. On my own I've got nothing, but the Lord has filled me with everything. I am full of grace, but it's grace that I'm full of. It's not personal power and Anthony Robbin's "Secrets to Success." It's God's grace. It's all a gift. It's icing. It's gravy, but it's now mine and so all generations shall call me blessed.
That's what we do in the rosary, isn't it? We just echo the angel, "Hail Mary," which means gift, "full of grace. The Lord is with you." And then we say, "You are blessed amongst all women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. For behold henceforth all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name." Why? Because he has done great things for me. I am a humble, lowly handmaiden and we're thinking, "Yeah, if you don't say so yourself, you know? Tooting your own horn. Patting your own back. Come on, give other people a chance."
Well, that's what the Church has had for 2000 years, a chance to toot her horn and to pat her back. But she starts it off. "His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts." Now you may be thinking that she is being proud in her imagination, but she is just being downright honest. "So he has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away." We could spend an hour on every phrase. It's just so packed! "He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy."
Take a look at chapter 2, verse 22, "And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord and offer sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons," which was the sacrifice for childbirth that was incumbent upon the poorest of the poor, for those who could not afford a real sacrifice. It suggests that Mary really was a handmaiden and so was Joseph humble and poor.
"Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him." It goes on, "And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ, the Lord's Messiah." This shows than anybody full of the Spirit, meditating upon the Old Testament would be expectant, waiting for a Messiah. This is Messianism. "And inspired by the Spirit, he came into the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 'Lord, now letest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen the salvation which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples. A light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to thy people Israel. And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him." I love him. "And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, 'Behold this child is set for the fall and the rising of many in Israel.'"
It isn't just unmitigated blessings. If you go back to the prophecy about the 77s in Daniel 9, you realize that the temple will be reconsecrated. A strong covenant will be made. Sacrifices shall cease and the holy city will be completely destroyed and desolate. And so at the same time that Christ comes after 490 years to reconsecrate the temple, there is a doom pronounced upon those who have accumulated in Jerusalem all kinds of wealth and political power and have corrupted the temple, because whose temple is it? Is it Solomon's? No. Is it the second temple that Ezra and Nehemiah helped rebuild? No. It's Herod's temple. A half-Jew Edomite who was murdering half his family. The downfall of those who wanted power and prosperity and wealth more than faith and love and grace and justice. "A sign of contradiction and a sword will pierce through your own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed."
... continued
Now we have other passages to look at. We won't spend any time on them. I'm just going to mention them to you and just draw conclusions briefly from them and then conclude. Of course, we should go to John 2. The first of the seven signs in the Book of Signs, the fourth gospel. The first of Jesus' miracles is to turn water into wine, just as the first miracle of Moses was to turn water into blood, so Jesus turns it into the blood of the grape as it is called in Genesis 49. Here we have, I believe, something that is fraught with all kinds of rich literary and theological symbolism. In John 1, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world," says John the Baptist. In John 2, the Lamb goes up to a wedding feast. Now does that sound familiar? A wedding feast where a lamb attends? That's how John is going to climax his book of Revelation, by inviting all of us to the wedding supper of the Lamb. And then along with the wedding banquet of the Lamb, we are also going to be introduced to a Virgin Mother Queen's city, the new Jerusalem, which is both virginally pure but maternally fruitful.
Theologians have suggested that John has deliberately just loaded the first few chapters of his gospel with the symbolism and the keys to interpreting his Apocalypse and the more you soak and meditate and ponder, I think the more you will find. So, she approaches him and says, "They've run out of wine. 'Woman, what is this between you and me?'" It's a very interesting phrase. I would recommend for your study a book by a top Biblical scholar in America, Manuel Miguens, who wrote a study on what does it mean, the Semitic idiom, what to me and to you, woman?" He actually shows that there is nothing caustic or irritated about Jesus' reply at all. It's basically, "You know, there's nothing between you and me."
So anyway, "Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what is it between you and me? My hour has not yet come." Jesus is thinking that the best wine will be given at the hour. What does Mary say? Mary is assuming another posture, now. She is going to have to distance herself from her son as her son. Now he's addressing her not as Mother, but as Woman. It sure connotes in my mind Genesis 3:15 and other key passages. Now all of a sudden, you are not just my mother anymore, what you are talking about in this miracle would initiate a whole new economy of salvation, woman, because that's what she is to be, a New Eve, a Mother to all of the renewed and redeemed humanity. "Woman, my hour has not yet come." What does she say, "Awe, come on, what are you going to do this for your mother, and now we're friends." No. She turns to the servants and says to them exactly what she says to us and all those who are truly devoted to our Lady, "Do whatever he tells you."
We should never allow ourselves to be so exclusively focused upon Mary that we don't hear her primary utterance. Do whatever he tells us! That's why Marian devotion does not take us away from Christ. It refocuses our eyes and our ears on whatever he tells us and that's what she is passionately concerned about now as then. "Do whatever he tells you." And it goes on and he tells the servants to take these six stone jugs full of water that were used for the Jewish Rite of Purification to wash feet. Can you imagine, if you were one of those servants? Well she said to do whatever he told me and you're taking these big, I mean, literally hundreds of gallons of dirty water and you take those jugs and you fill the cups with this dirty, smelly water used to wash feet and wash the dirt off these people and you hand--- laughter -- these guys don't know what to do with this man. What are they going to do when they taste the foot water?
There's so much humor in this stuff that we miss, you know. And they're sitting back there saying, "We're going to get in trouble. No, no. She said, 'Do whatever he tells you.' We're just doing what the friend of the groom said, you know? We're just following orders, you know?" And all of a sudden they just kind of sit back there cracking up, waiting for all hell to break loose and all kinds of problems. And then all of a sudden, what does the host say when he tastes the water? The steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine and didn't know where it came from though the servants who had drawn the water knew. The steward of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, "Every man serves the good wine first, but when men have drunk freely and have become drunk, then the poor wine. But you have kept the best wine until now. This, the first of his signs Jesus did at Cana in Galilee."
Now who is this steward of the feast called the bridegroom? Well, if you go over to John 3, you discover that that is what John the Baptist thinks about himself. Look over at verse 27. John answered, "No one can receive anything except what is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I have said I am not the Christ but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom, the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice." Now John has deliberately joined together what the steward at the feast, the friend of the bridegroom has said about this great wine with John the Baptist, the last and the greatest of the Old Testament prophets who identifies himself as the friend of the bridegroom, the steward of the feast, as it were. This last and the greatest of the Old Testament prophets has said, "Hey, look, I'm baptizing you with water" and by the way the water in those six stone jugs goes back to Numbers 19. It was for the Jewish Rite of Purification in Numbers 19, the word is "baptizein." It was for Jewish baptism purification. John the Baptist says using that kind of water to purify the people and get them ready for the Messiah, that same kind of water is all of a sudden transformed into the best wine by the Lamb of God and John the Baptist is saying, "The New Covenant has come." And when you go into the Apocalypse, you see this thing just kind of thrown open to the whole universe in Technicolor. Because there the Lamb of God in Chapter 5 is enthroned and he leads all the people in worship and he invites all the universe to the wedding supper of the Lamb where he presents the blood, the wine, the best of the New Covenant at his banquet.
This is what our Lady triggered. Just a humble little Jewess who knows what grace is all about. "Do whatever he tells you," and you won't even begin to anticipate the glories that will be revealed to us. That's what she said. If we will do whatever he tells us, we will not have to calculate what we can produce with our own human resources. Why? Because if Mary tells us anything, she tells us that God can do the greatest with the least. If we are tempted to say, "I'm really not that smart. I'm not that eloquent. I'm not that powerful. I'm not that rich. I'm a nobody." I'd say, "Bingo. You're qualified. You have just proven yourself to be the most qualified of all because who does God love to use?" The lowest, the least, the poorest, the humblest, the ones who know they are nobodies, so that when God does something great through them, everybody would look and say, "It had to be God," and He gets all the glory. And that's what Mary wants to do, to give God all the glory.
So we say, "Well then, why give glory and honor and devotion to Mary?" Because we do whatever Jesus tells us. And we do whatever Jesus does because the fundamental axiom of Christian morality is the imitacio Christi, the imitation of Christ, and he is the best of the best when it comes to being a son. Not only a Son of his heavenly Father but a Son of his earthly mother. When he accepts the mission of his Father to become a man and to obey the law, he obeys it more perfectly than anybody could have ever imagined it being obeyed. And when he gets to that commandment, "Honor your father and your mother," that Hebrew word, kabodah, means bestow glory, comes from kabod weight, glory. So he honors his Father and obeys his command by bestowing unprecedented glory upon the one that he has chosen from all eternity to be his mother. The only time that the Creator created a human creature, created the one destined to be his mother. And he filled her with his own life and grace because he began honoring as soon as she was created his mother.
So what do we do? We honor Christ and we glorify him and we imitate him. If we really imitate him, we do what he does and we honor and bestow glory upon his mother. Not instead of him. It isn't undermining devotion to Christ. It's to express our devotion of Christ, our worship of Christ by imitating him. And if we do it we're going to be able to see in her face, the face of our mother, because Jesus has taken on her flesh and blood and given us his own Divine nature. Peter says, "We are partakers of Divine nature through Christ" so that his mother can become our mother, spiritually, supernaturally, but actually and really. And so in devotion to him, we can be devoted to her without any compromise, without any tug of war, without any diminution or decrease of our honor to Christ.
Love is not a finite substance. God is love. Love just keeps multiplying and reproducing itself, and the more we love, the more love we have to give. And the more we love Christ, well, we know if there were 90 percent that goes to Christ and 10 percent that goes to Mary, 100 percent of it goes to God and the God-man and therefore 100 percent of it and more is available for us to give to others and especially his Mother who has become our Mother. Isn't that what Jesus is trying to say at the Cross when he says to the beloved disciple. He didn't say "John," he said "to the disciple he loved, 'Behold your Mother.'"
Now which disciple did Jesus love? John as opposed to Peter? Not James, Bartholomew? He loves all his disciples then. He loves all his disciples now. Who is the beloved disciple who should look upon Mary as his Mother? All of us who are beloved disciples. This is why in Revelation 12, "The woman who gives birth to the male child who is to rule the nations, the Messiah against whom the dragon makes war." At the end it says, after she has been delivered up into heaven, kind of assumed bodily, as it were, "The dragon makes war against the rest of her offspring, that is, those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus." They're the beloved disciples. We are the brothers and sisters of Christ, the firstborn among many brothers, and guess what that makes us? The children of the Queen Mother of the Son of David. That heavenly temple is our home. That new Jerusalem is our birthplace. The daughter Zion is our sister and she is our mother and she is our bride and she is our homeland.
Thank God that we don't have to undermine or take away anything from the glory of Christ. Rather we behold the ultimate masterpiece of Christ in Mary. And like any artist, you know if an artist takes you into his room with all the masterpieces hanging on the wall and you could stand there staring at him saying, "Oh my. You are such a great artist. You're fantastic." He'd say, "Hey, look at my work." He wouldn't feel offended if you went over to his greatest work and said, "This is awesome. Wow! Thank you!" He would say, "Hey, come on. Check out my pants and shirt. Look at my face." No. Christ wants us to fall head over heels in love with his Mother because that's his masterpiece. Exhibit A, that he can really accomplish salvation. She was saved from sin. That's why she is sinless. Because some people are saved from sin and other people are saved from sin and she was saved by Christ from sin from beginning to end. It's the work of Christ and we extol and praise our eldest brother, our Lord and Master and our Redeemer as we love and as we follow his Mother and do whatever he tells you.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit we pray: Father in heaven we thank you for our Mother in heaven. We thank you Lord, Jesus Christ, for filling her up with your grace, for giving to her spotless flesh and blood so that we, through her, might have a perfect gift to express our thanks and praise to you in giving you human nature that was unspotted to enable you to make the perfect sacrifice, uniting that spotless human nature to the glorious divine nature of the Second Person, the Eternal Son. Thank you for making us sons and daughters of the Most High. Thank you Lord Jesus for making the Blessed Trinity our family. Help us to renew our appreciation and devotion to our adopted status but help us see that it's more than just a legal standing. That you have filled us to overflowing with the same spirit that filled Mary. Through her intercession increase our devotion in all propriety but in all magnitude and help us with joy to spread that. We thank you for Mother Church, called to be a virgin, a bride and a mother. Help us, O Lord to see that we who are your Church are called to accept the fullness of grace that Mary has. You chose her through whom to give Jesus to the world and now still that pattern remains. You are continually giving the life of Christ through Mary. Help us to always remember that in our hearts and to store it up like she so that we might do whatever he tells us, that we might do whatever pleases you, Lord Jesus. That we might sacrifice ourselves in union with your Eucharistic sacrifice continued perpetually in heaven forever in praise, honor and thanksgiving to our Father and your Father. And hear us as we pray that family prayer you taught us: Our Father, who art in heaven, etc.