1 January – Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
Recently, someone remarked to me about an exchange she had had with a lady who put the question to her, “Who made God?” “If God has made everything, who made God?” “When did God begin?” Of course, God has neither beginning nor end. God is. Yet, to imagine something that has no beginning, that has always been, is not possible to comprehend. I think it is slightly easier for us to imagine something that may have no end, for we have a glimpse of eternity in our own experience of time, but to imagine something without a start is difficult indeed.
We can apprehend such a mystery, but we cannot understand it cognitively. To contemplate such a mystery requires the recognition of the smallness of our own minds, that they are not in control. We cannot grasp such a mystery; we can only receive it. We can only receive it with humility and with gratitude.
And this reception happens such that, without corrosion, this mystery becomes manifest in time, in a moment of history. There is a moment in the town of Nazareth in Galilee in which a young girl says ‘yes’ to this mystery. She has not understood with her mind; she has understood with her love. Subsequently she has enabled this extraordinary mystery of eternity, beyond human grasp, to become manifest in our midst, to show itself it time, in history, to become visible. Mary gives “a human face to the eternal Word, without beginning, so that all of us can contemplate him.”[1] For this reason, we cannot think of Jesus without Mary: she is the one through whom, and by whom, God has entered the theatre of our world. She has become the Mother of God because she is the means through which we can see what is invisible.
This understanding of Mary as the Mother of God was defined first at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. However, it was not something formulated by theologians or by bishops. It is said that the residents of Ephesus, themselves, used to gather at the gates of the basilica where the bishops were meeting, and shout, “Mother of God!” [2] It was a declaration of the common people who had this innate sense from the beginning of Mary’s role in making manifest, in time, God’s eternity. There is also the story that some among those people had clubs in their hands, perhaps to make the Bishops understand what would happen if they did not have the courage to proclaim Mary, “Mother of God”![3] Well whatever the effect of this, it was the faithful, themselves who requested that this understanding of Mary be authoritatively defined. A little later after the Council of Ephesus, in 435AD, the Basilica of Saint Mary Major began to be built in Rome, the first Marian shrine in the West, where the image of Mary as Theotokos – the Bearer of God – is venerated.
As the Mother of God, as she who, through her assent, makes visible that which is invisible, Mary brings something new into the world. A new hope is birthed into our midst. And for this reason, we celebrate Mary as Mother of God on this the first day of the year when our hearts have a renewed sense of expectation and possibility. It has been a year of many difficult challenges. We come to the 1st January this time, but also in some sense every year, with the hope that a page may be turned over, a new chapter begin – a chapter that offers something new.
What our hearts long for most, though, is the newness that Christ Jesus brings, the new possibility that he brings to our world overwhelmed and anxious. We long for the peace that only Christ can give. And for this reason, we also celebrate today as the World Day of Peace. As Pope Francis writes for today:
“I have already observed on a number of occasions that we never emerge the same from times of crisis: we emerge either better or worse. Today we are being asked: What did we learn from the pandemic? What new paths should we follow to cast off the shackles of our old habits, to be better prepared, to dare new things? What signs of life and hope can we see, to help us move forward and try to make our world a better place?
Certainly, after directly experiencing the fragility of our own lives and the world around us, we can say that the greatest lesson we learned from Covid-19 was the realization that we all need one another. That our greatest and yet most fragile treasure is our shared humanity as brothers and sisters, children of God. And that none of us can be saved alone . . .
The pandemic brought all this to the fore, yet it also had its positive effects. These include a chastened return to humility, a rethinking of certain consumeristic excesses, and a renewed sense of solidarity that has made us more sensitive to the suffering of others and more responsive to their needs. We can also think of the efforts, which in some cases proved truly heroic, made by all those people who worked tirelessly to help everyone emerge from the crisis and its turmoil as best they could.
This experience has made us all the more aware of the need for everyone, including peoples and nations, to restore the word “together” to a central place. For it is together, in fraternity and solidarity, that we build peace, ensure justice and emerge from the greatest disasters. Indeed, the most effective responses to the pandemic came from social groups, public and private institutions, and international organizations that put aside their particular interests and joined forces to meet the challenges. Only the peace that comes from a fraternal and disinterested love can help us overcome personal, societal and global crises.”[4]
In the face of both the questions of or world, and of our hope, we turn to Mary. We ask that her heart be ours. For if we, too, had her humility and her grace – if we, too, pondered and treasured the divine life within our hearts with such constancy as she did – then something might become visible in our world that we had not dared imagine. And though we could not answer the question of when God’s life begins, our own lives, like Mary’s, would show that God’s life can show itself ever new in our own time.
[1] Pope Francis, Homily on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, 1st January 2015.
[2] From Pope Francis, Homily on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, 1st January 2014.
[3] Pope Francis, Homily on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, 1st January 2015.
[4] Pope Francis, Message for the 56th World Day of Peace, 1 January 2023. See https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/20221208-messaggio-56giornatamondiale-pace2023.html