Third Zone by Boboy Yonzon
Third Zone

CHRISTMAS MOTHER

Dec 12, 2022, 3:46 AM
Boboy Yonzon

Boboy Yonzon

Columnist

Kay tulin ng araw. I will be on the road when the Catholic’s Christmas dawn Masses start. Like last year, I’d probably join it through the Internet live streaming. As usual, the Nativity tableau will be without the baby Jesus on the manger until the Great Day.

What is birth without the role of the mother? The Philippines has a law that celebrates the Immaculate Conception and has made December 8 a nationwide holiday.

Until when, I do not know. With the way the previous president practically said “F*ck you, Catholics! What kind of God do you have that he couldn’t save Himself from the cross” and how his admirers laughed with glee, the biggest and longest celebration of Christmas in the world may be counting its days.

“But man will live forevermore, because of Christmas day.” So there.

If God Himself is mocked, what about the person who gave Him human vessel? I am a nominal Christian but a Marian believer. I can tell you that the Rosary works for me and my wife. I just cannot tell you how and even why, so I will be citing other sources, not my own subjective experience.

I will be alluding to the issues of National Geographic, December 2015, on “Mary: The Most Powerful Woman in the World,” and Time Magazine, March 21, 2005, with “Hail, Mary.” We understand that there might be shifts in viewpoints, as extreme overflows of information through cyberspace hasten the finicky of minds and perception.

Time Magazine quotes Rev. Brian Maguire that if we celebrate Jesus’ entrance and exit, then Mary should have a huge part in it, for she was after all the first and last disciple right from the announcement that Christ is coming up to his human end. Maguire was Presbyterian.

The Time article suggests that, despite strong disagreements within, more Protestant churches are recognizing the role of Mary in the Christian narrative, not just as the womb but as a guiding light indirectly endorsed by her Son.

The Muslims, on the other hand, like Christians, revere her above all women, and her name “Maryam” appears more frequently in the Koran than “Mary” does in the Bible. In New Testament, Maureen Orth of National Geographic says, Mary speaks only four times, the first was when she was probably stunned but poised when the angel told her she was going to be a mother to the Son of God and she simply responded she is willing to serve.

I had the fortune to visit Mary’s small home in Ephesus, Turkey where I admired the simplicity and grace of her statue, as compared to the ornate and sometimes glitzy depiction of her in Catholic figurines.

There are a few clues about her life. She, as the Holy Trinity of the religion she is identified with, is a glorious mystery. Still, Mother Mary refuses to stop at being just an anthropological mother but, instead, keeps growing ever so large a divine icon - appearing everywhere throughout the decades.


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