Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God
It is common to make one or more New Year’s resolutions at this time of year. You decide that you want to spend more time with family, or that you would like to be healthier or to get more exercise. In this way our contemporary, secular culture recognizes the need to reflect on one’s life and to change course at least once a year. The calendar offers us an opportunity to start anew, even if it often is difficult to follow through on living out our resolutions.
Our New Year’s resolutions can often lead us to improve various aspects of our lives; however, the opportunity for self-improvement that they offer often remains superficial. The scriptures consistently teach us that Jesus offers us the gift of an even more radical new beginning through our embrace of his gospel message. Jesus tells us that we can seek for a new beginning no matter how we have lived in the past. The scripture readings for today speak of the importance of reflection and meditation in times when we find ourselves at a new beginning as regards our relationship with God.
The gospel reading for today shows several responses to the birth of Jesus. The shepherds respond to their experience of Jesus’ birth by talking about the amazing things that they have witnessed and by sharing them with others. Mary, by contrast, is more contemplative. She meditates on the miraculous and momentous events that have occurred since the angel Gabriel’s annunciation of the birth of her son. At this point in the church calendar we find ourselves in a similar place. We are still meditating on the narrative of Jesus’ birth. We are trying to make sense of these awesome events, both on their own and for our lives today. We find ourselves asking: What does it mean that God became a human being and came to live among us here on earth? What does the incarnation of Jesus mean for our lives today?
The first two readings draw our attention to one way that these events can have meaning for us—namely as actions through which God blesses us and brings about our salvation. The first reading explains how God instructs Moses to have Aaron to bless the Israelites. God has blessed them in numerous ways – but above all by forming a special relationship with them by making a covenant with Abraham. They are now God’s people set apart by God in order to be a blessing to all inhabitants of the earth (Genesis 12: 2-3).
In the second reading, Paul tells us how we can be blessed in our lives as Christians. It is not a material blessing he is talking about there. Instead he is talking of the spiritual blessings that come from being adopted as daughters and sons of God through the work of Jesus Christ. We have been given a new beginning through our baptism into Christ. By reflecting on what it means for us to be children of God, we follow in the footsteps of the shepherds, who encountered Jesus at his birth, and Mary, who raised Jesus and knew him perhaps better than any other human being during his earthly life.
In response to these passages, I find myself still wanting to make some New Year’s resolutions. But I also feel the need to go deeper than this. How can I see myself in the New Year as being a child of God? Do I see this status as a child of God as a blessing? How does my answer to these questions help me to reflect on my life as a Christian? For guidance in answering these questions, I pray for the grace of God through the intercessions of St Mary.
- Joel Schickel