A New Year’s meditation

NEW Year’s Day, of course, liturgically coincides with the

Solemnity of the divine maternity of our Lady. We should be reminded

that we have to make ourselves new again spiritually and morally under

the guidance of the Mother of God and our Mother also.

          Every New Year may make us a year older, but spiritually and

morally, it should make us younger until we reach that point that we

will forever be new and young, as we head toward our goal of eternity,

where everything is new, where there will be no more past nor future.

That’s where time is swallowed up by the eternal present.

          It would be nice that with all our human ways of celebrating

the New Year’s Day, we would also be aware that we have to celebrate

it liturgically, that is, going to Christ, now recently born, who will

do everything to teach, sanctify and lead us to heaven, our definitive

home. Let’s not to get distracted by our human way of celebrating the

New Year’s Day.

          And the Church wants us to start the new year with Mary, the

Mother of God because she is the Mother of Christ, and she is also our

Mother, because Christ gave her to us as our mother too. “Behold your

mother,” (Jn 19,27) Christ told the apostle John who at that moment

represented the whole of humanity.

          It is good to be mindful of this truth of our faith because

Mary our Mother is the best companion we can have in going through our

earthly pilgrimage toward God, toward heaven.

          Being the mother of Christ, she is the one closest to God,

the first link between God and us, since with her ‘Fiat” (Be it done

to me) she became the instrument of making God become man in Christ

through the Holy Spirit.

          In a sense, we can say that for us to get to God in Christ

through the Holy Spirit, we have to go to Mary. She is the bridge we

can use to go to Christ. Thus, we have this famous expression, “Ad

Iesum per Mariam.” (To Jesus through Mary)

          We really should develop a deep and abiding devotion to

Mary. Like St. John who, after being told by the dying Christ to

behold his mother (Mary), took her to his home and cared for her,

(cfr. Jn 19,27) we too should do the same.

          We have to be truly Marian to be truly Christian. That’s

part of God’s will for us. We cannot go to Christ, we cannot

understand him properly and cooperate with him in our redemption, if

we do not go to Mary.

          On our part, we just have to make sure that we take care of

our spiritual and moral life since it is through them that we are

enabled to receive God’s grace that is the sole principle of eternity.

Everything else in our life should get its life and purpose from our

spiritual and moral dimensions of our life.

          We need to deepen our faith in God’s love for us, which

should be shown in deeds. It’s in this way that we can participate in

Christ’s victory over sin and death with his resurrection to eternal

life. That victory will always make us new as St. Paul once affirmed:

          “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has

passed away. Behold, all things are made new.” (2 Cor 5,17) In another

passage, St. Paul said: “For we are buried together with him by

baptism into death, that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory

of the Father, so we also may walk in the newness of life.” (Rom 6,4)

          We need to learn the ways of this “newness of life” offered

by Christ through his passion, death and resurrection or the Paschal

mystery that summarizes everything that he did and said to save us.