Mary, Mother of God

Out with the old, and in with the new

As the midnight hour strikes in various time zones across the globe, celebrations are taking place to bid farewell to the year that was and to usher in the year that will be.  Amid music and reverie which in some instances is extravagant and in others is absent altogether, there is a sense of passage as the clock strikes midnight and its tolls ring out.

In Vienna, the New Year is greeted with the annual concerts of orchestral music by Straus and Mozart.  From Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth issues her customary greeting on this day, and from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Holy Father speaks words of greeting and expresses his prayer for peace on the day which has been designated as World Day of Prayer for Peace.

Like the shepherds mentioned in the gospel, we gather around the crèche and dare to dream about the possibility that the child who was born there, whose birthday we celebrated only a few days ago, truly came among us as the promise of peace in a turbulent world.  Peace can seem to be such an illusive reality.  At times it seems that no matter what efforts we extend in an effort to create peace, there is always someone who has to suffer, there is always somewhere in this vast world of ours where someone is hurting.  Although we may be tempted to think our efforts fruitless, consider the fact that even the smallest of actions can carry the promise of hope, and with such promise, great things can happen.

I’m sure that as they huddled in the stable that night in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph may have wondered whether the promise spoken by the angel was really coming to pass.  After all, the child she carried was to be great.  He was to be called the Son of the Most High.  How could it be that such an exalted king was to be born in a drafty stable?  Even as they were perhaps pondering these questions, the shepherds arrived.  They had come to see the child who had been announced to them by the angels.  I wonder whether Mary and Joseph greeted them warmly or whether they were too tired to protest.  As the shepherds recounted their own encounter with the choir of angels, perhaps the mother and father of Jesus simply smiled that knowing smile as they remembered their own encounters with the celestial messengers.  Did they wonder why it was that instead of the nobility, their first visitors were the outcasts? The scriptures simply say that Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

At the end of one calendar year, and the beginning of another, it is customary for us to outline resolutions: hopes and dreams for the coming year.  These goals should not be agreed upon lightly.  They allow us to honestly take stock of our lives if we are willing to be honest, and to start afresh by setting things right.  Before we agree on the specifics of this year’s plan, ought we not to do as Mary did: to stand still and ponder the reality that is before us?  This child of God came among us to bring peace, but he needs each one of us to set our hearts and our sights on creating peace.  This child came among us to proclaim the Father’s love and forgiveness, but he needs us to be the instruments of love and forgiveness for our world.

                                 

At the beginning of this new year, let us welcome the blessing of our God, spoken throughout the centuries in the words of Moses: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.  This blessing is God’s hope that the year to come will bring with it the assurance of His presence, His joy and His peace.  With these gifts, we too can be instruments of peace for our world.  We can proclaim this peace to family members and to strangers alike.  We can demonstrate to them the power of love which we have known in the promise of God made visible in his Son who has come among us to announce the good news that we are all sons and daughters, and therefore heirs of our God and Father.