SOLEMNITY OF MARY, MOTHER OF GOD : Wednesday, 1st January 2025

To bless is holy. God is Holy. It is God’s nature to bless. Anyone who fails to impart blessing, especially to a mother and her child, is a tragic solipsist. Anyone who is hopeful will generously bless a new day, a new year. It is a blessed memory that we revisit the ascribed title of Mary as Holy Mother of God. It signifies both the sublime heaven and supreme human blessing that has taken shape in her. Later, such a supreme blessing enfleshed a true living person, Jesus.

As though commanded by God, Moses was instructed to impart the formula of blessings to the wandering people. Then Paul, in Galatians, exhorts his audience that the fullness of God’s blessing is in accepting the God-sent son of a woman who sets us free from slavery to sonship. This promise of new inheritance took place in the refuge for animals, where the encounter between the shepherds and Mary, who became a mother to a baby, took place.

As Holy Mother, Mary shatters the ancient prejudice ascribing the sin of humanity to a woman. In Mary, we learn that hope is born in our acceptance of our role and responsibility to know life has its divine origin, its maturing needs nurturing of faith and its future accompanied with undying love.

Bless us O Lord, that we may bless our days and engagement with others unceasingly from your bountiful providence.