We celebrate today Mary, the Mother of God. We each one of us have a mother, who we counted on as we grew into adulthood and beyond. In counting on our mothers we would listen to them and would hold them up as someone to be revered. This is the case even when we disagreed with a punishment, or a rule that she may have made us follow.
We would hold our own mothers, whether natural or adoptive, as a model for us to follow. Humanity was given a mother to follow at the crucifixion and that is Mary. Mary should be considered our mother as well. This was believed from some of the earliest days of the church.
At the council of Ephesus the church officially recognized Mary as the Mother of God with the following statement.
“We confess, then, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of                   God, perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and a body,                     begotten before all ages from the Father in his Godhead, the same in              the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of Mary the Virgin                  according to his humanity, one and the same consubstantial with                  the Father in Godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a            union of two natures took place. Therefore we confess one Christ,                  one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the                                  unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be the Mother of                  God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his               very conception united to himself the temple he took from her”                    (Formula of Union [A.D. 431]).
With this we are reminded that in Jesus, God came to us through Mary and took human form. We hear in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, God came to be human in order to receive all as adoptive sons and daughters. This was brought forth in that Jesus was fully human and fully God in the perfect hypostatic union.
As his adoptive sons and daughters, we still have the freedom of will to either follow his lead as the Father or to ignore it. This does not limit our freedom but brings us to a more perfect freedom. We are not held captive by material things, addiction to drugs, alcohol or any other things. We are free in the sense that none of these things would hold power over us.
During our lives we have all had times where have asked for our mother to intercede for us with our father. We as Catholics call on the Mother of God to intercede with us to the Father. We know we are to do this in many different situations simply based on the different names that Mary is known by. These include, Our Lady of Loreto, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of the Angels, Our Lady of Mercy, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Blessed Queen and consoler of the Church Suffering. Many other names can be found in the Litany of the Holy Name of Mary.
When we ask for her intercession, our Heavenly mother will pray for us just as our human mothers pray for each of us. This prayer from our Heavenly Mother is special as she holds a special reverence in Jesus’ heart. Just like sons and daughters hold their mother in high esteem, Jesus holds his Mother in that same high esteem.
When we hear today in Luke that the first people that were told of the birth of Jesus were shepherds, see Jesus and tell Mary and Joseph what they have heard it makes Mary contemplate in her heart. We see in this that God wants all people even the poorest and most ridiculed to be his. The shepherds were never held in high esteem during that time as they were thought to be ignorant of the ways of the world and inevitably they would smell like the sheep they tended.
Yet Mary listened to them and did not send them away without listening and considering all they had said. This reminds us that Mary was still working on understanding all that Jesus would become to so many people around the world.
As we begin this New Year, let us all be mindful of how our mercy can be spread just as the Mercy of Christ was spread by Mary. We have a wonderful prayer to start the New Year that is given to us this day in Numbers.
“The LORD bless you and keep you!The LORD let his face shine                         upon you, and be gracious to you!The LORD look upon you kindly                   and give you peace! So shall they invoke my name upon the                                Israelites, and I will bless them.”
He has blessed us with his son Jesus born of the Virgin Mary, let us continue to live as one as Mary has shown us the way.