The contribution of the generations

The long form of today’s Gospel for the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23) is a genealogy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ followed by the angel’s announcement to Joseph in a dream. Many take the option of omitting the genealogy and using only the account of the dream. The genealogy is long, repetitious and full of unfamiliar names that are sometimes difficult to pronounce.

But the genealogy is full of meaning, not the least of which is a lesson about history and ordinary people, for while the genealogy includes a number of famous people, it also includes many people who were never famous: people with ordinary names (ordinary in that culture) and who lived ordinary lives.

But these ordinary lives meant something: to their children and to others who knew them.

Moreover, through the mystery of God’s will, each generation in different ways made a contribution that would continue down the generations, culminating in the Incarnation and the Birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior.

While you and I do not have the opportunity to be ancestors of Christ, still we have a contribution to make, each of us in our own generation, that will pass down all the generations that may come and, by the grace of God, on into eternity.

With God’s grace, may we make the best contribution we can.