Happy New Year 2023! Today is the 8th Day of Christmas, these past 8 days are celebrated as one long day of Christmas joy. It is the Solemnity of the Mother of God; it is also World Day of Prayer for Peace. May God bless you and your family in this New Year, may we grow together in holiness as a family, with bonds of genuine affection and true Christian concern.
So in the midst of football, and maybe nursing that hangover on New Year’s Day stands the Mother of God. Pope St. Paul VI in changing the name of this feast wrote in his apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus in1974, called the Solemnity of Mary “a fitting occasion for renewing adoration of the newborn Prince of Peace, for listening once more to the glad tidings of the angels (cf.Lk 2:14), and for imploring from God, through the Queen of Peace, the supreme gift of peace.”
Over the years today’s feast had different titles; it was once known as the Circumcision of the Lord, or the Holy Name of Jesus. Those titles were taken from the fact that on the eighth day after the birth of a boy, he was circumcised; the physical mark of being of the chosen race of God, and his name was given him. Our Lord’s name, of course, was given to Him by the Angel Gabriel before Jesus was born. The Feast of the Circumcision was the first time our Lord shed His Precious Blood for the sake of humanity.
Of course, it is only fitting that we celebrate so close to Christmas, the Feast of Our Blessed Lady’s Divine Motherhood. It was Mary’s faith that allowed God to bring forth His Divine Son into this world as a true man while remaining true God. Mary’s role as mother of God places her in a unique position in God’s redemptive plan.
As our Lord was “first” in God’s mind, and through Whom and for Whom creation started, Mary was “second” insofar as she was chosen from all eternity to be His mother.
The precise title “Mother of God” goes back at least to the third or fourth century, she is the “God-bearer.” It became the standard of the Church’s teaching about the Incarnation.
So, on this first day of the Year 2023, we ask Mary, the mother of the Prince of Peace to bring peace to our world, to watch over her children in the Ukraine and all the places where war is a way of life.