Today, we celebrate the end of the year 2016 and the beginning of a New Year. On the first day of the New Year, we always celebrate the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God - Mary, as the Theotokos, the God bearer through whom Jesus came into the world. In Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church from the Second Vatican Council, it was declared that God did not employ Mary in a purely passive way, but that she freely cooperated in the work of human salvation through her faith and her obedience. The great Early Church Father St. Irenaeus is quoted in Lumen Gentium on Mary, noting: “Being obedient, Mary became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.” Mary is seen as the new Eve, as St Irenaeus states: ““The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience; what the virgin Eve bound through her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened through her faith.” Pope Francis really likes that image of Mary as helping us untie that knots that hinder us on our journey of faith. In our relationship with God, when we disobey his will, when we do not listen to him, when we lack trust, when we turn to sin, a kind of knot is created in us. These knots take away our peace and serenity, hope and trust. These knots can become tangled, making it difficult to untie them. Yet, we know nothing is impossible with God and his grace. By saying yes to God, Mary opened the door for God to undo the knot of original sin, that ancient disobedience. Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother, patiently and lovingly brings us to God so that he can untangle the knots in our souls.
Lumen Gentium goes on to say that through Mary’s faith and obedience, she gave birth to the very Son of the Father, not conceived by man, but by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Mary first conceived Jesus in faith and then conceived him in the flesh by freely following God’s will and his calling in her life. What took place most singularly in the Blessed Virgin Mary also can take place within us in a spiritual sense. When we receive the word of God into our hearts with sincerity and humility, when we put his word into practice in our lives, then God take flesh within us and comes to dwell within us. In this way, Mary as the Mother of God and as the first disciple is not only our greatest example of faith, but our Mother who leads us and guides us to Christ. We can bring Jesus to life in a spiritual sense in the same way Mary brought him to life.
We celebrate the beginning of the New Year with Mary as we ask for her prayers and intercessions for our journey, for our nation, and for our families. January 1st this year marks the 50th anniversary of World Peace Day, which was established by Pope Paul VI. The theme this year is: “Non-Violence: A Style of Politics for Peace.” The statement issued by the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace states: “Violence and peace are at the origin of two opposite ways to building society. The proliferation of hotbeds of violence produces most serious negative social consequences. Peace, by contrast, promotes positive consequences (in society) and it allows the achievement of real progress.” Pope Francis calls us to always negotiate ways of peace in our own lives and in the world, even when peace seems difficult and impractical. In working toward peace, we are to bring hope to the world and to others. The Pope advocates that disputes be solved through peaceful negotiations without dissolving into violence or war or armed conflict.
To me, no prayer exemplifies the Pope’s call to peace more that the Peace prayer of St Francis of Assisi. With the intercessions of Mary and all the saints, let us unite our prayers for peace and an end to war, terrorism, and violence.
Let us pray:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
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