Cycle B - Year I:  

1 January 2021:  Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

(Liturgical Color: White)

Readings:

First Reading:        Numbers 6:22-27

Second Reading:   Galatians 4:4-7

Gospel:  Please Read  Luke 2:16-21

"A New Journey with Mary, the Holy Mother of God!"

Thank You, Lord, a new journey begins as we greet each other "A Happy and Blessed New Year 2021!"

Let us celebrate anew the gift of life and thank the Lord that we have survived the pandemic year 20201.  We greet the New Year 2021 with prayers that God be merciful and save us now from the pandemic and return our lives to normal.  Thus, the New Year fills our heart with hope, inspiring us to reach out to new opportunities and face new challenges.

Holy Mother Church opens each new year by proclaiming Mary as the Holy Mother of God and entrusting the Church and all of us to her protection.  

Let us reflect and understand more this particular title of Mary as "Mother of God".

Since Mary is the mother of Jesus, it must be concluded that she is also the Mother of God.  This is affirmed by logical syllogism: "If Mary is the mother of Jesus, and if Jesus is God, then Mary is the Mother of God."  This fact was affirmed in June 431 by the Council of Ephesus proclaiming that indeed Mary can rightfully be called "Mother of God".

However, it is important to clarify that "although Mary is the Mother of God, she is not His mother in the sense that she is older than God or the source of her Son's divinity, for she is neither.  Rather, we say that she is the Mother of God in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person -- Jesus Christ, God in the flesh -- and in the sense that she contributed the generic matter to the human form God took in Jesus Christ."

As Mother of God, we honor Mary for her courage, faith, devotion, and humility.  Like all other mothers, Mary must have felt afraid at certain moments in her maternal role, like when Jesus was lost and found in the temple after three days, and also during the agony and death of the grown-up Jesus on the cross.  But Mary's complete trust in God made her accept the role of a mother to God the Son.

The Gospel narrative is from St. Luke about the poor shepherds who were the first witnesses of the birth of the Messiah. They went in haste to Bethlehem after receiving the Good News from the angel about Jesus' birth.  There they found Mary and Joseph, and the infant Jesus lying in a manger, just as what the angel told them.  "And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart." (Lk 2:19)

Now, in Mary we find a perfect model of being a Christian and disciple of Jesus.  She was the joy-filled mother of the new born Jesus; she was the mother of sorrow cradling her lifeless Son in the "Pieta"; and she was the Queen-Mother standing at the right hand of the glorified Lord, which we proclaim in the Fifth Glorious Mystery of the Rosary.

As we begin a new journey of life in the year 2021, with this pandemic still with us, let us pray to Mary, the Holy Mother of God and our Mother too, for protection: "O Blessed Virgin, pray to God for us always, that He may pardon and give us grace; pray to God for us always, that He may grant us peace in this life; pray to God for us always to protect us and end this pandemic; pray to God for us always that He may reward us with Paradise when our journey is completed.  Amen."  

Year of St. Joseph:

Let us also pray to St. Joseph to protect us and our family during the new journey, just as St. Joseph protected the Holy Family, Mary and Jesus while on earth.

I wish you and all my readers A Happy, Safe, and Blessed New Year 2021. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!