Very often around this time most people take a sigh of relief from all the rushing, and from all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. They take down their lights, box up their ornaments, set their tree out for the birds, and restore their homes to proper order. So often people are ready to be rid of Christmas because of their crazy December. How was your Advent? Were you able to slow down a bit? If not, how about slowing down now? It's still Christmas!
I absolutely love the Christmas season because for me, the way I enter into the mystery of Christ's Incarnation at Christmas time affects the way I am able to grow in my faith and enter into Lent with a mind and heart oriented to prayer and penance. First we celebrate Christ's birth, and as the joyous celebration continues, we are reminded of our universal call to holiness, the call to stand firm for our faith in the midst of adversity - even to the death - as shown to us through the lives of the saints. First, on December 26th, St. Stephen, martyr by blood, then on the 27th, St. John, unwavering in his faith and white martyrdom, and on the 28th, the Holy Innocents, martyrs in their innocence. Then, on the feast of the Holy Family, we are reminded of our call within the domestic Church to honor our mother and father, to care for our children heroically, and to minister to people of good will as our brothers and sisters in Christ!
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and, as the liturgical season reminds us, His Incarnation, His life, death and resurrection call us to action; action in our prayer, our relationships, our ministry, our work, and our will. The ultimate role model of this is Our Mother Mary! Her holiness, steadfastness in faith, action towards the good in all things and maternal love for us all is a beautiful witness to us as we strive along the path. As the Liturgical season of Christmas continues, and the calendar year begins, we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. I think this celebration takes all those challenges of the Christmas season so far, and challenges us even further so that we can imitate her goodness and virtue throughout the year.
As you may remember from November, we annually consecrate ourselves to Jesus through Mary on January 1st. To give oneself entirely to Mary so that she may bring us to her Son is for me the best way to start off the new year. The way the preparation for the consecration falls each year is beautiful because the preparation begins at the close of the Liturgical year and ends with the consecration at the beginning of the calendar year.
As we enter this new year, let us seek to grow deeper in our relationship with Christ and His mother. Pope Francis, in his homily on the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, spoke words that I have been meditating with because they contain within them a beauty for each of our lives!
He says... "Our pilgrimage of faith has been inseparably linked to Mary ever since Jesus, dying on the Cross, gave her to us as our Mother, saying: "Behold your Mother!" (Jn 19:27). These words serve as a testament, bequeathing to the world a Mother. From that moment on, the Mother of God also because our Mother! When the faith of the disciples was most tested by difficulties and uncertainties, Jesus entrusted them to Mary, who was the first to believe, and whose faith would never fail. The "woman" became our Mother when she lost her divine Son. Her sorrowing heart was enlarged to make room for all men and women, all, whether good or bad, and she loves them as loved Jesus. The woman who at the wedding at Cana in Galilee gave her faith-filled cooperation so that the wonders of God could be displayed in the world, at Calvary kept alive the flame of faith in the resurrection of her Son, and she communicates this with maternal affection to each and every person. Mary becomes in this way a source of hope and true joy!
The Mother of the Redeemer goes before us and continually strengthens us in faith, in our vocation and in our mission. By her example of humility and openness to God's will she helps us to transmit our faith in a joyful proclamation of the Gospel to all, without reservation. In this way our mission will be fruitful, because it is modeled on the motherhood of Mary. To her let us entrust our journey of faith, the desires of our heart, our needs and the needs of the whole world, especially of those who hunger and thirst for justice and peace, and for God. Let us then together invoke her, and I invite you to invoke her three times, following the example of those brothers and sisters of Ephesus: Mother of God! Mother of God! Mother of God! Amen."
Written by Nicolette
