Immaculate Conception: December 8, 2014—9:00 AM and 6:30 PM
Do you like brainteasers? I recently came across a website called 45-riddles-and-brain-teasers-for-kids.
Here are some of those brainteasers: Q: I’m tall when I’m young and I’m short when I’m old. What am I?
A: A candle. Q: In a one-story pink house, there was a pink person, a pink cat, a pink fish, a pink computer,
a pink chair, a pink table, a pink telephone, a pink shower–everything was pink! What color were the stairs?
A: There weren’t any stairs, it was a one story house. Q: What has hands but cannot clap? A: A clock. Q:
A house has 4 walls. All of the walls are facing south, and a bear is circling the house. What color is the
bear? A: The house is on the north pole, so the bear is white. Q: What is at the end of a rainbow? A: The
letter W. Q: What starts with the letter “t”, is filled with “t” and ends in “t”? A: A teapot Brainteasers
make your head spin, don’t they, but they do make us think.
Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Recently I came across
some words* by St. Augustine, a great teacher and bishop of the Church, a man who died in 430 AD. These
words from him about the Blessed Virgin Mary at first made my head spin, but they also made me think.
We honor Mary as the Mother of God, the mother of the divine Jesus, but this is what St. Augustine
wrote: Indeed the blessed Mary certainly did the Father’s will, and so it was for her a greater thing to
have been Christ’s disciple than to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship
than in her motherhood. We think that her carrying the word of God in her womb was a great thing, but
this is what St. Augustine wrote, Mary heard God’s word and kept it, and so she is blessed. She kept God’s
truth in her mind, a nobler thing than carrying his body in her womb…(H)e was kept in Mary’s mind
insofar as he is truth, he was carried in her womb insofar as he is man; but what is kept in the mind is of a
higher order than what is carried in the womb. We think of Mary’s being the Mother of Christ as a special
thing, but St. Augustine also tells us that we can be mothers of Christ; this is what St. Augustine wrote, Now
having said that all of you are brothers of Christ, shall I not dare to call you his mother? Much less would I
dare to deny his own words. Tell me how Mary became the mother of Christ, if it was not by giving birth
to the members of Christ?...You became sons when you were born there yourselves, and now by bringing
others to birth in the same way, you have it in your power to become the mothers of Christ.
Here are a couple more brainteasers for you: Q: A man was outside taking a walk, when it started to
rain. The man didn’t have an umbrella and he wasn’t wearing a hat. His clothes got soaked, yet not a single
hair on his head got wet. How could this happen? A: The man was bald. Q: A cowboy rides into town on
Friday, stays for three days, then leaves on Friday. How did he do it? A: His horse’s name was Friday.
Brainteasers make our heads spin, but they do make us think.
Let us today honor Mary who, because of God’s love, bore Jesus in her head before she more him in her
womb. Let us today honor Mary whose greatest honor was to first have been Jesus’ disciple before being
his mother. We can best honor her by imitating her, that is, by bearing Jesus in our heads and by finding
our greatest honor in being his disciples. In that way, we too can be like Mary, for, just as she was the
Mother of Christ, so, by living lives of faith and lives of love, we too can be mothers of Christ.
*Found in the Office of Readings for the PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
http://www.liturgies.net/saints/mary/presentation/officeofreadings.htm