Celebating Mary as the Holy Mother of God has a long history in the Church but it’s assignment to January 1 is of more recent vintage. This day over the years has been known as the Feast of the Circumcision, (as a Jewish boy Jesus would have been circumcised on the eighth day after his birth), the Holy Name of Jesus (a Jewish boy at his circumcision would receive his name — Pope John Paul II placed this feast on January 3), or simply the Octave Day of Christmas. In addition, Pope Paul VI asked that January 1 be kept as a World Day of Peace. In pagan times (and today!) the New Year was celebrated with drunkenness and revelry. The Church wanted to counter that tendency with prayer, hence the complicated history of the liturgical celebration for this day. A look at the Scriptures assigned for the feast provides us with a rich source of meditation as we start the year. Since the day is designated to honor Mary as the Holy Mother of God we can begin our meditation with Jesus. How great a mystery that the son of God chose to share a human life and how that gospel truth changes the entire way we look at what it means to be a human being. It certainly changed Mary. St. Luke reports Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. She models for us that it is not experience that teaches us but reflection on experience. In order to understand the events which had unfolded in her life she needed to bring them to prayer. But the feast is not just a look back at the historical record. It also is a challenge to us. When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children of God. We don’t look back on the gospel story as ancient history but as current events. Mary as the Holy Mother of God impacts our understanding of what it means to live in this world. We have an intimate connection to Jesus as members of the family. That is why Pope Francis has added an additional Marian feast after Pentecost of Mary as Mother of the Church. How blessed we are that the Lord has let his face shine upon us for that is our source of peace.
