New Year and the Solemnity of the Mother of God
January 1, 2021: Numbers 6: 22-27; Galatians 4: 4-7; Luke 2: 16-21
We celebrate 2021: It is a fresh start, a new year, a treasure of 365 days! It is a gift, a gift in all ways: precious, beautiful, wrapped and presented. First of all, it would be too rude not to receive it as a gift. Secondly, it is wrapped...and it is important that we receive it with a sense of wonder, surprise and gratitude. Trying to know everything, in the name of predictions and presumptions, would strip it of its wonder! Specially in the context of the pandemic that is still threatening us around, to reduce the upcoming year to a set of predictions and chances would be an injustice to the core. To approach it with a wry and dry mentality will make it devoid of its surprise. Let us behold it with gratitude and a sense of childlike curiosity, prepared to receive the gift on a daily basis, one day at a time!
We celebrate the Lord: The greatest gift we can have, that with which we begin every new year, is the loving presence of God! The babe in the manger is the highest gift that we can ever have. The Emmanuel, God with us, is the most precious gift that one can ever behold. That the Lord is with us, fills us with hope: that whatever it be as the year unfolds day by day, we would never be alone facing it. We have the Lord with us. Days and days of confusion and frustration, months and months of restriction and helplessness - they are all at the back of our minds as we begin this new year. But let them not crowd out from our minds the recognition of God's presence, a presence that gives us strength and positive outlook on life - that which we call, hope!.
We celebrate the gift of the Lord: given in and through the Mother of God! The Mother of God is a gift, a reminder and a challenge to us.
The Mother of God, is a gift: God gives her to us as a protector, a guide, a refuge as we begin this new year, with all its surprises. A reason to be grateful to God and a treasure to be used all through the year, the accompaniment of our blessed mother, who walks with us and leads us by example.
The Mother of God, is the reminder of the Word made flesh, the Lord who has cast away all distance and difference and become one like us, just to show us how much God loves us. She remains a constant sign of the fact that we need to be ever grateful to God, that we are what we are - thanks be to God. She is the epitome of God's salvation history and its bountiful effects on our human existence.
The Mother of God is a challenge, a challenge to give, to give endlessly. She gave herself, when the Angel approached her! She gave the world the Son of God, born of a woman, when the fullness of time came. She gave that child to the Lord, offered him in the temple and offered him to the Father's work! She gave up her young son, for the sake of the salvation of the world. She gave up everything and gave everything! She stands as a challenge for us today to give - to give and never to count!
This year, which is given into our hands today, as a gift pack, will be filled with peace if we live it in the way that the Lord wants us to; after the example of our Blessed Mother. She said that yes, and she said that for her whole life, not knowing what it meant and where it will lead her. All that she was assured was, the Lord was with her. We are assured too that the Lord's presence will go with us, that the Lord's countenance will shine on us.
Let us begin with hope and that will give us peace:
May the Lord bless you and keep you!
May the Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!
May the Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!
May your New year 2021 be filled with God's presence, peace and every blessing!