Along with New Year wishes for blessings and peace—we wish you a Happy Feast of Mary, the Mother of God!
While the Scriptures we hear during this Christmas season help us enter into the joy of Christ’s birth (and Mary’s obviously important role in that), they do not offer us much about her equally important role in raising Jesus … teaching Him, nurturing Him, and forming Him. One example of the importance of her Motherhood is what happened at the Wedding at Cana (John 2). Do you recall what she told the servants that day? “Do whatever He tells you.”
The only way Mary could say such a thing is that she had complete confidence that “nothing is impossible for God” (as she herself had heard from the Angel Gabriel). This isn’t to say that she didn’t have confusion or a lack of understanding at various moments, but she appears to have genuinely trusted in God’s promise, that for Him nothing is impossible.”
That might be our best way to begin this New Year: with a resolve to do whatever is asked of us by God – without complaint or whining. Are we willing to joyfully remember (even well beyond the Christmas season) that God has come to live among us? Are we willing to ask for Mary’s help in understanding God’s care for us today and all year? Might that truth change the way we live?
Let us pray. “Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace, especially in this New Year. Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage of our Mother Mary. Keep alive within us the flame of hope, so that our way of life will always be that of peace. We ask this in name of the Prince of Peace, your Son, who lives and reigns with you forever and ever. Amen.” Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us.
