Good evening. A blessed Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God and a Happy New Year’s Eve to everyone! If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to be more prayerful this year, then I encourage you to pray every day the prayer of blessing that we just heard proclaimed in the first reading. The prayer is the one that the Lord gave Moses to give to Aaron and his sons to bless the Israelites. Husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, pray this prayer over each other and your children every morning before you all leave the house for school or work. “May the LORD bless you and keep you! May the LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! May the LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!”
Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Mary is truly the Mother of God, since she gave birth to the Second Person of the Trinity who became man for our sake (EWTN). At the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus” (Luke 1:30-31). Mary is truly the Mother of God because the angel of the Lord also appeared to Joseph in a dream and said to him, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. . . he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. . . [and when] she bore a son. . . he named him Jesus” (Mt. 1:20-25).
We also hear in Scripture that “[all] this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” (Mt. 1:20-23). Moreover, in his catechesis on the Blessed Virgin Mary’s title “Mother of God”, Pope Saint John Paul II said: “Mary's divine motherhood refers only to the human begetting of the Son of God [who] assumed our human nature 2,000 years ago and was conceived by and born of Mary [which makes her] the ‘Mother of the Incarnate Word, who is God’” (General Audience, 11/27/1996). It is the motherhood of Mary that made all of it possible, from the Incarnation to the birth of the Church, which is why the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of God and the Mother of the Church.
Not only is Mary truly the Mother of God but she is also her Son’s most faithful disciple. As the ark of the New Covenant, the role of Mary is to “bear Christ to the world” (Graym 75) in the way that she bore the infant Jesus to the shepherds that first Christmas night in Bethlehem. Just as Mary is the living tabernacle that carried Jesus in her virginal womb, we are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). In a few minutes from now, we become like Mary when we receive the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus in the Eucharist. As Christians, we are called to imitate Mary and bear the presence of Christ to the world so that others may go through their lives “glorifying and praising God.” It is the mission that Jesus entrusts to us at our Baptism when he commissioned us to “[go], therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.” We share this mission with Mother Mary who herself has been carrying it out faithfully since the time she gave God her “yes”, bringing countless souls to her Son to save.
Most of all, though, Mary is truly the Mother of God because she loves the Son of God and all of us, adopted sons and daughters of the Father, with a mother’s tender heart. Mary’s heart is the Immaculate Heart that pondered and reflected on the great mystery of her Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At the Annunciation of his birth, Mary’s heart pondered the message of the angel Gabriel. When Joseph and Mary went to the temple for the presentation of infant Jesus, Simeon told Mary that a “sword will pierce” her heart (Luke 2:36). After she and Joseph found the child Jesus in the temple, she kept all those things in her heart. Then, in today’s Gospel, after the birth of baby Jesus, and visits from the shepherds, we hear that “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” St. Thérèse of Lisieux once said that the “loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.”
For me, growing up and even now as an adult, my mom often tells me in Vietnamese: “mẹ giữ những điều này trong lòng của mẹ,” which translates to mean “I keep these things in my heart.” I know this to mean that my mom’s heart aches because she has many worries and concerns out of love for her husband, children, and grandchildren. My mom’s heart is most filled with joy when she sees her family healthy, happy, and fed. Like all loving and caring mothers, she carries her crosses daily with courage and strength that God reserves only for mothers, most especially true with Mary, the Mother of God, whose heart felt joy, love, sadness, and sorrow for the Son of God. We can feel what Mary feels for Jesus when we pray the mysteries of the holy rosary and ponder and reflect on the life of Christ through the eyes of his beloved Mother.
On this Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, as we say good-bye to 2024 and entrust 2025, with all its hopes and promises, to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, may these words from Our Lady of Guadalupe to Saint Juan Diego fill our hearts with hope, peace, joy, and love for the new year. Our Lady said to Juan Diego then and to us now: “Do not be troubled or weighed down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety, or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?”
Let us pray a Hail Mary, asking the Mother of God to intercede for our families in the new year: Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010125.cfm
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