Mary, Mother of God

Today's Readings:
Num 6:22-27
Ps 67:2-3, 5-6, 8
Gal 4:4-7
Luke 2:16-21
http://www.usccb.org/nab/010108.shtml

Reflecting on our blessings

HAPPY NEW YEAR! On this holy day, which includes an obligation to celebrate Mass because it's as important as Sunday, I pray that you will have a very Jesus-centered year in which you know the joy of his healing love and his emboldening strength that enables you to succeed as his partner in every difficulty.

Use the prayers in Mass to consecrate your new year to the protection and help of his mother Mary and to make this a year of many blessings.

In the first reading, God teaches Moses how to pass blessings onto others. The responsorial Psalm includes a request for God to bless us. Today's second reading describes the greatest blessing we've received: our adoption by God the Father. As his children, we inherit all that belongs to him. He has made available to us eternal life and every blessing under the heavens and in heaven.

Blessings come to us all the time. Every breath and each heartbeat is a blessing of life. But would you like to be amazed by your blessings, like the people in the Gospel passage who heard about what the shepherds had witnessed?

This amazement is an awe that comes from recognizing the presence of Jesus. We are blessed whenever we see, do, hear, or feel something that is Jesus or comes from Jesus or reveals him to us. That means we're even blessed in situations that feel like curses, because he is there, guiding us through it!

We have to keep our eyes on Jesus at all times. Admittedly, this is hard to do, but it's possible with decisive effort and the help of the Holy Spirit. Look past the problems: There is the victorious Jesus! Look past your own emotional reaction to the hardships: There is the peace of Christ! Look past the person who is sinning against you: There is Jesus comforting you!

Be awed by the fact that Jesus is always there and that everything good you do in this world is a good you are doing to Jesus. In hardships, we overcome evil by doing good to Jesus. In this, we become aware of the blessings of God's love and sympathy. And we'll find other blessings, too.

The next time someone fails to be good to you, stop expecting it from them and look for Jesus himself to give you what you need. As you improve at recognizing him, you'll become aware of his blessings even during the heat of the trial.

In every situation, always keep your eyes on Jesus to see his hand reaching toward you, blessing you.

Let us learn from Mary. She observed everything that happened and reflected on it to see what God would do. When Mary looked at the shepherds, did she see scruffy, stinky, unkempt strangers barging in? Of course not. Look at them through her eyes. How many blessings do you see? May your New Year be full of the awareness of your own blessings.

Remember the motto:
Keep your eyes on Jesus!

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Mary’s divine motherhood broadens the Christmas spotlight. Mary has an important role to play in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. She consents to God’s invitation conveyed by the angel (Luke 1:26-38). Elizabeth proclaims: “Most blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42-43, emphasis added). Mary’s role as mother of God places her in a unique position in God’s redemptive plan.

Without naming Mary, Paul asserts that “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). Paul’s further statement that “God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out ‘Abba, Father!’“ helps us realize that Mary is mother to all the brothers and sisters of Jesus.

Some theologians also insist that Mary’s motherhood of Jesus is an important element in God’s creative plan. God’s “first” thought in creating was Jesus. Jesus, the incarnate Word, is the one who could give God perfect love and worship on behalf of all creation. As Jesus was “first” in God’s mind, Mary was “second” insofar as she was chosen from all eternity to be his mother.

The precise title “Mother of God” goes back at least to the third or fourth century. In the Greek form Theotokos (God-bearer), it became the touchstone of the Church’s teaching about the Incarnation. The Council of Ephesus in 431 insisted that the holy Fathers were right in calling the holy virgin Theotokos. At the end of this particular session, crowds of people marched through the street shouting: “Praised be the Theotokos!” The tradition reaches to our own day. In its chapter on Mary’s role in the Church, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church calls Mary “Mother of God” 12 times.

Comment:

Other themes come together at today’s celebration. It is the Octave of Christmas: Our remembrance of Mary’s divine motherhood injects a further note of Christmas joy. It is a day of prayer for world peace: Mary is the mother of the Prince of Peace. It is the first day of a new year: Mary continues to bring new life to her children—who are also God’s children.

Quote:

“The Blessed Virgin was eternally predestined, in conjunction with the incarnation of the divine Word, to be the Mother of God. By decree of divine Providence, she served on earth as the loving mother of the divine Redeemer, an associate of unique nobility, and the Lord’s humble handmaid. She conceived, brought forth, and nourished Christ” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 61).

Published by Jacob Soo
Credits to American Catholic.org and Good News Ministries