What would you say if someone asks, can you prove that God exists? Can you provide an empirical, scientific or mathematical proof of the existence of God? St Thomas Aquinas understood that strict proofs in the empirical sense are not possible, he would point out that theological or philosophical arguments, while not strict “proofs,” point to important things. Here is another question: can you prove the existence of love? I’d be surprised if you can offer a consistent, repeatable, and full proof of love, but I have no doubt that you can offer experiences, insights, and examples of the incarnation of love in one’s life. Neither can I prove that God or love exists – all I can do is reflect upon the world that God created and see the argument for God and love in life itself.
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. There is something to ponder on this day – as part of Christmas – in that we celebrate giving birth to God into the World. We celebrate through Mary, The Word came into the world, fully God, fully human – not on the great rolling thunder clouds with the heavenly hosts at full strength. Rather, Jesus was born in the same way each of us was born. Jesus came into our lives at the end of a very human process: conception to birth. Jesus came at the appointed moment, as St. Paul says in the second reading: “When the fullness of time had come…” (Gal 4:4)
To me that also seems an apt description of how faith is born in our lives – after a long human process – when the fullness of time has come. The divine never takes us by storm, dynamiting His way into our lives with a force so powerful that we can’t resist. God always enters our life in the same way that Jesus did on the first Christmas. God is gestated in a spiritual womb and appears as a helpless infant that has to be picked up, nurtured, and coaxed into adulthood. The presence of God in our lives depends upon a certain human consent and cooperation.
For God to take on real flesh and power in our lives we must first do something. What, you ask? I think the answer lies in the way Jesus was born. Mary, Jesus’ mother, shows us a certain blueprint, a pattern for how God is born into our world and how faith is born in our lives.
There are four moments in the pattern: (1) to be move in cooperation with the Holy Spirit; (2) a period in which there is a gestation of God within one’s body and soul; (3) the stretching and agony of giving birth; and (4) the nurturing of an infant into adulthood.
To move in cooperation with the Holy Spirit: in addition to conceiving Jesus by the power of the Spirit, Mary let the seed of God’s spirit (charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long-suffering, fidelity, mildness, faith, and chastity) take root in her that it began to grow into actual flesh and being.
Gestation of God within one’s body and soul: As we know, conception is not followed immediately by childbirth. A long, slow process first occurs, gestation. In the silent recesses of her heart and body (and surely not without the normal morning-sickness that accompanies pregnancy) an umbilical cord began to grow between Mary and that new life. Her flesh began to give physical sustenance to the life of God and this steadily grew into a child which, at a point, as in all pregnancies, demanded to be born into the world. So too with us
The agony of giving birth: Nothing secretly gestated is born into the world without pain, Jesus included. So too with the moment in which God’s charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, fidelity and faith emerge from within to be on display in one’s life. Just as with childbirth, there can be much groaning and stretching of the flesh for this sacred life to emerge into the world. But in the end, what’s precious inside and has been given birth outside.
Nurturing an infant into adulthood: The author Annie Dillard once suggested that we always find God in our lives as Jesus was found in Bethlehem on Christmas, a helpless infant in the straw who must be picked up and nurtured into adulthood: “God’s works are as good as we make them. That God is helpless, our baby to bear, self-abandoned on the doorstep of time, wondered at by cattle and oxen.” Mary gave birth to the baby, Jesus, but what she ultimately gave the world was not the adult, Jesus. Like all mothers she had to spend years nursing, cajoling, teaching, and nurturing an infant into adulthood.
In that pattern, looking at how Mary gave birth to Christ, we are given a blueprint that invites admiration but also imitation. Mary is the model of faith. What she did each of us too is called upon to do, namely, give birth to God in our lives. Christmas is for marveling at what once took place, but it’s also for imitation, for continuing to give God flesh in the world.
How do you prove to anyone, yourself included, that God exists? You don’t. The object of our faith and worship doesn’t appear as a compelling proof at the end of a rational experiment. We give birth to God into the world in our words and actions that made love incarnate and our faith grow to maturity.
In this we honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, give glory to God, and witness to the world.
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