Mary, and The Symphony of our Redemption

Even though we celebrate the birth of Mary today, the Gospel reading is about the birth of Christ. Why is that? One answer is that everything about Mary is not about her, but about Christ, including her very birth.  That’s true, but hardly enough. Perhaps the best way to enter in the mystery of Mary’s birth is by using the metaphor of a symphony. 

Think, for example, of one of Beethoven’s musical masterpieces in all its complexity and beauty.  First of all, a symphony has to have a composer who writes down on paper all the notes and chords he wants played. Thus he creates music, developing an ongoing theme and variations on it in different ways for all the instruments in the orchestra. The melodies and variations he develops are not merely nice sounds with no purpose or direction but are building up to something. The music is going somewhere, to a resolution or conclusion that is fulfilling. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In order for the symphony to be played, in addition to the composition, the various instruments, the various musicians and orchestra,  also needed is a conductor who understands knows how to conduct the orchestra so as to interpret the mind of the composer who wrote the work to begin with.

How does this help us to celebrate the mystery of Mary’s birth?  Today’s short Gospel reading skips the long genealogy, or family tree, that Matthew begins with.  In our culture we think a geneology or family tree is a long list of ancestors. Scripturally, it is much more. We need to think of all the persons  Matthew mentions as notes which God plays as chords to make music, so that he can compose a Symphony of Redemption.  The music is not haphazard, random noise, but leads up to something, or rather Someone, according to the plan of the composer. In any composition, the right note has to be played at the right time, the right way, and in the right place. If it is played out of place, too soon, or too late, it is no longer part of the harmonious whole, but a jarring noise that does not fit in. God, the Divine Composer of the music, calls all the people on Christ’s family tree into being, in the right place, and the right time, to be the notes and chords he needs them to be.  He also creates good music out of the dissonant notes they have made out of their lives.  He does all this so that he can introduce Mary into the score, and through her, Christ. Without Mary, the music has nowhere to go. With her, through her, and because of her, the music is endlessly fulfilling.

God is not only the composer of the music, he is also the Creator of the musicians, and the Conductor of the orchestra, leading the music where he wants it to go.  Even more, with the birth of Christ God becomes part of the orchestra! The Creator jumps into his creation. He becomes one of the musicians. He becomes the very music played, the full melody with its endless richness and infinite variations. He is also the culmination, the purpose and fulfillment of the whole symphony.  In fact, all of us are part of the Symphony of Redemption which began with the act of creation and will reach its conclusion in the Parousia or Second Coming. 

However, the one note, the most sorely needed, irreplaceable and inevitable human note, that has to be in the right place at the right time for the symphony to work is Mary. Without her the music goes nowhere. Without her, there is no music. Without her, there is no Christ, and all crash into a chaotic cacophony.

She is “only” one note, but what a note! Her life was a gift, something she received just as you and I receive the gift of our lives through our parents. When she was born, she did not know her part, her purpose, in the symphony. Only God did. Her birth, her life, is God’s gift to her, but also, God’s stupendous gift to us. Because of her, each of us is privileged to be an individual note played into a chord as part of the universal music God is composing, directing  and playing in the ongoing Symphony of Redemption.