This is the last meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai in 2020. We're about to make a transition to a new calendar year, with the great solemnity of the Mother of God. Mary not only carried Jesus in her womb but also supplied all of the genetic matter for his human body, since it was through her—not Joseph—that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3). In the fifth Century Nestorius had objected to this, and said Mary was only the mother of the nature. But the church rejected this claim, saying she was not only mother of a nature, but also of the person. She was mother of God, theotokos, in Greek.

One of the ancient philosophers once remarked that man differs from the beasts essentially because he can, as it were, raise his head above the waters of time.

The beasts are like fish swimming in the water; they are simply carried along by the stream of time. Man alone can raise his sights above the water and so become master of time.

But do we really do that? Are we not, too, mere fish in the sea of time, carried along by its currents without a clear view of whence time comes and whither it goes? Do we not become so completely absorbed in the details of daily life, with its constant demands and troubles, moving from deadline to deadline, duty to duty, that we are no longer able to perceive ourselves?

This should be an hour, then, for emerging from the water and trying for a moment to look beyond the sea of time to heaven above and its stars, so that in the process we may lay hold of ourselves as well.

Music Adrian Berenguer, Fall, (Album Singularity) 2017