Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God
The Church begins the civil New Year not with fireworks or resolutions, but by turning her gaze to a woman — Mary, the Holy Mother of God.
This is not accidental. On the eighth day after Christmas, the Church invites us to pause, to reflect, and to begin again — not by looking forward too quickly, but by looking more deeply into the mystery we have already received.
In biblical tradition, the eighth day is not simply the next day after the seventh. It is the day of fulfilment, the day that opens beyond ordinary time.
Christmas is not over. It is completed.
For eight days the Church has lingered over a single mystery: God has become man. And on this eighth day, she names clearly what that mystery implies. If the child born at Christmas is truly God, then Mary is truly Theotokos— the God-bearer, the Mother of God.
This title is not primarily about Mary. It is about Christ.
The Church proclaimed Mary as Mother of God at the Council of Ephesus in the year 431, to safeguard the truth that Jesus Christ is one person, fully God and fully man.
Mary does not give birth to a nature or an idea. She gives birth to a person. And that person is God the Son.
By placing this feast within the Christmas octave, the Church protects the heart of our faith: the unity of Christ. The child in the manger is not later adopted by God. He is God from the beginning. Mary stands at the centre of this confession — quietly, humbly, but indispensably.
For many centuries, 1st January was celebrated as the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord. This too belongs to the mystery of the Incarnation: on the eighth day, Jesus is circumcised according to the Law, entering fully into the covenant of Israel.
The Church has not denied this truth. Rather, she has allowed it to recede into the background so that the deeper theological meaning of the day might come forward.
Circumcision shows that Christ truly became human, subject to the Law.
Mary, Mother of God, shows who this human being truly is.
Both point to the same reality: God has entered our history without reserve.
There is also a profound pastoral wisdom in beginning the year with Mary. At the start of a new year, many of us carry uncertainty. We do not yet know what lies ahead: illness or health, stability or upheaval, joy or loss. Resolutions are made, but they are fragile. Plans are drawn, but they remain provisional.
Mary does not offer us control. She offers us trust.
The Gospel tells us that she “treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.” She does not rush ahead of God. She does not demand clarity before obedience. She receives what is given, step by step.
This is a deeply realistic spirituality for the beginning of a year.
The world tells us that a new year means reinvention. The Church tells us something quieter and more demanding: faithfulness.
Mary teaches us how to begin again:
• not by mastering the future,
• but by entrusting it to God,
• not by escaping uncertainty,
• but by carrying it in hope.
To place the year under her motherhood is to confess that our time belongs to God, just as her life did.
On this first day of the year, the Church gives us neither sentimentality nor anxiety. She gives us a name to hold onto: Mary, Mother of God.
If God has truly taken flesh from her, then no moment of our time is foreign to him.
If Mary could carry God into the uncertainty of her own life, then we too may carry Christ into the unknown days ahead.
May she, who welcomed God into her life,
teach us how to welcome him into the year that now begins.
Dominik Terstriep S.J.
