As the Church begins a New Year, we know that our sense of time is governed by God’s providence and is celebrated in the rhythm of the sacred liturgy. We as Christians do not simply turn the pages of a calendar, seeing time as the passing of an endless chain of individual moments. Rather, the passing of one year to the next recalls that time is ordered toward fulfillment and completion that will ultimately arrive with the Second Coming of Christ.
In this joyous time, Catholics inaugurate a New Year on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. This feast day, which concludes the octave of Christmas, allows us to celebrate the role that Mary played in bringing forth the Savior of the world. Yet it also allows us to ponder at the start of a new calendar year how she continues to extend her motherly care over the body of believers, known as the Church. Mary’s motherhood did not end on Good Friday with the death of Jesus. For Christ entrusted his beloved disciple, John, to her motherly care and with him, all disciples who seek to know her Son. And from that pivotal hour, she has been watching over and interceding for all those who make up Christ’s Mystical Body on Earth.
In celebrating that Mary is the Mother of God, the Church makes bold statements about this Chosen Daughter of Israel who brought forth the Messiah. Her role was not simply to bring forth a hero. Instead, she carried within her something far more majestic than one who was simply man. She carried God within her womb, Jesus who is the second person of the Most Holy Trinity. Within Mary’s body, the uncreated God assumed a created body, taking on human nature and aligning Himself with the human family. Thus, Mary did not give us a religious reformer or a spiritual guru. She gave us the source of our redemption, the God-man who united Himself to our material existence in order to redeem us from the penalty of sin and death. As St. Anselm taught, “God… is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life.”
The gift of motherhood is precious in the eyes of Christians, for from mothers new human beings are brought forth who are endowed with a body and a soul, ordered and destined for God. Yet more powerfully in the case of Mary, we see in her the sacred place where God launched His plan of salvation. Only within her blessed motherhood could be found the gift of a child who has the power to redeem the human race as God and is also one with the human race as man.
Many poets and religions have celebrated the gift of motherhood. Yet such forms of respect often pay reverence to the gift of fertility and one’s participation in the continuing cycle of new life. Yet in celebrating the Motherhood of Mary on New Year’s Day, the Church does not merely revere a woman who got the chance to conceive new life. Rather, we celebrate the one who became the dwelling place of Life itself. She gave birth to the Incarnate Word, the One through whom all life was originally brought into existence and who entered into His own creation. Mary’s motherhood is thus elevated to a level previously unknown by the human race. And this rich motherhood continues to give life as she seeks to bring more and more believers into communion with her Son. Let us truly celebrate the motherhood of Mary in this New Year with hearts of gratitude. For we count on her maternal care and protection, and eagerly look forward to dwelling with her one day in the halls of heaven, giving all praise and glory to Christ, her Son and our Savior.
