Mary
January 1 — Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God A-1
Entrance Antiphon Hail, Holy Mother, who gave birth to the King, who rules heaven and earth for ever.
Or: Cf. Is 9: 1, 5; Lk 1: 33 Today a light will shine upon us, for the Lord is born for us; and he will be called Wondrous God, Prince of peace, Father of future ages: and his reign will be without end.
Collect O God, who through the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary bestowed on the human race the grace of eternal salvation, grant, we pray, that we may experience the intercession of her, through whom we were found worthy to receive the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
(January 1) Mary, Mother of God 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. 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. “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).
Scripture today: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 66; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21
The shepherds went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. Having seen, they understood the word that had been spoken to them concerning this child. All those who heard what was told to them by the shepherds wondered and Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen as it was told to them. After eight days the child was circumcised and he was given the name JESUS, which was given to him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. (Luke 2:16-21)
Mary When Cardinal Carol Wojtila was elected Pope in 1978 he chose for his papal banner a simple and unusual design. It was a plain cross on the shield and under the cross the letter M: symbolic of Christ on his cross with Mary standing nearby. That is to say, at the outset of Pope John Paul II’s pontificate, Christ with Mary his mother were presented before the Catholic, non‑Catholic and non‑Christian world. Today, at the very beginning of the new civil year, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of Mary the mother of God. While it is probably still a surprise and even a shock to some Protestant Christians to see the prominence of Mary in the Catholic scheme, it is the most natural thing in the world for Catholic and Orthodox Christians. They honour Mary just as Christ honours her and they treat her as their mother, just as Christ treats her as his mother. Let us consider the place of Mary in Christian devotion in a more historical context. Prior to its rejection by the Protestant Reformation beginning implicitly with John Wycliffe in England during the fourteenth century, passing over to Jan Huss in Bohemia in the fifteenth century, and then taken up explicitly and in powerful earnest by the Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth, the cult of Mary was the most normal thing in the world for the Christian. It was always judged and encouraged by the Church as a wonderful doctrinal and devotional development of Christian doctrine. Just as any idea develops, indeed just as any living thing develops, so did the understanding of and devotion to Mary. Of course, not all changes are true developments, and the Church is constantly vigilant against those changes that it judges to be deformations. The Protestant Reformation was a case in point. Luther proposed and insisted on certain teachings which the Catholic Church judged not to be developments but profound misconceptions. This raises the question of who in the Church has been granted the authority from on high to determine what is a true development of doctrine and what is a deformation.
The Catholic Church gives its clear answer. The charism to make such a judgment resides in the successors of the Apostles who must act in union with, and subject to, the successor of St Peter. The Pope judges and states, or more usually the bishops of the Church (together with and subject to him) judge and state, what is to be believed as having being revealed by Christ. So it is that, over the two thousand years of the Church’s life, devotion to and understanding of Mary the mother of the Saviour has grown in the life and devotion of Christ’s faithful. This development has occurred under the Church’s supervision. Mary is the Woman, as our Lord addresses her in St John’s Gospel, who interceded for those in need at the wedding feast of Cana. She is therefore our help, the help of Christians. She helps us with her intercession as the Queen Mother and inspires us with her example as the one who was totally obedient to the word of God. She is the Woman, as our Lord addressed her on the Cross, whom he gave to his beloved disciple to be his mother. In him she was given to all of Christ’s disciples to be their mother. She is the mother and model of the Church because she is, as the Council of Ephesus taught, the mother of God. This is her fundamental prerogative. She is Christ’s mother and therefore she is the mother of the Son of God made man. What dignity is hers! At the beginning of the civil year, the Church with good reason places before all of Christ’s faithful the figure of the most exalted human person in the sight of God, Mary the mother of the Second Divine Person made man. She is, as the Angel said to her, full of grace and the Lord is with her. She is, as Elizabeth said to her, blessed among women and blessed is the fruit of her womb. Therefore we constantly address her as our mother because she is Holy Mary, Mother of God. We ask her to pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. This we ask of her daily. At the beginning of the year we ought entrust ourselves to Mary’s maternal care and ask her to keep us close to Jesus who is the Object of her, and our, whole being.
Let us as Christians cultivate a true devotion to Mary, one that will please both her and her divine Son. That devotion is one that leads us to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, and our neighbour as ourself. Mary is our help in this. She is the help of Christians in their work in life, which is to be true disciples of Christ. Let us not separate ourselves from her who is our great help, Mary the Mother of God whose feast we celebrate today.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 527 (The Mysteries of Jesus' Infancy), 484-487 (Conceived by the Power of the Holy Spirit)
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