Celebrating the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother of God and our mother marks the best way of beginning the first day of a new year. Let us show some light on this important solemnity with which we have begun 2023. In fact, every time we pray the Hail Mary, we proclaim Mary as the Mother of God: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." Every time we use this wondrous title as we pray the Hail Mary, we sing in chorus with the third ecumenical Council of Ephesus which convened in 431 once and for all to settle and declare that Mary is truly “Mother of God.” It was the first Marian dogma.
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 (Lk 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?” (Lk 1,42-43). Adding with Elizabeth's words at the Annunciation, the Catechism reminds us (495), “Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly 'Mother of God' (Theotokos).” Without naming Mary, Paul asserts that,
Venerable Fulton J. Sheen loved to write and speak often about the Blessed Mother. He wrote this beautiful reflection in his magnificent book appropriately titled The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God: “When Whistler painted the picture of his mother, did he not have the image of her in his mind before he ever gathered his colors on his palette? If you could have preexisted your mother (not artistically, but really), would you not have made her the most perfect woman that ever lived — one so beautiful she would have been the sweet envy of all women, and one so gentle and so merciful that all other mothers would have sought to imitate her virtues? Why, then, should we think that God would do otherwise? When Whistler was complimented on the portrait of his mother, he said, 'You know how it is; one tries to make one's Mummy just as nice as he can.' When God became Man, He too, I believe, would make His Mother as nice as He could — and that would make her a perfect Mother. She existed in the Divine Mind as an Eternal Thought before there were any mothers. She is the Mother of mothers - she is the world's first love.”God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.” (Gal 4,4)
Last year's words belong to last year's language, and next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.” (T.S. Eliot)
Fr. Ronald J, SdC
Provincial Superior