When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman…so that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal.4:4).⧾
On this the last day of the Christmas Octave and the first of the New Year, we celebrated the divine maternity of our Mother and Queen, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today’s Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God celebrates the divine Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary and by extension her perpetual virginity and the virgin birth. These privileges were hers by virtue of her indispensable role in the Mystery of Salvation. They are dogmas of the faith that speak of Our Lord’s divinity, and today we affirm our belief in them with great joy. This is the oldest of all Marian feasts and it celebrates not only Our Lady’s unique role in the Mystery of the Salvation but also our share in this mystery. She is the Mother of Jesus, true God and true Man for she brought forth the Saviour in the flesh, but she is also our Mother in the order of grace. The Son of God who is consubstantial with the Father, as we profess in the Creed, is in His humanity consubstantial with the Mother. How truly blessed we are to have so beautiful and so good a Mother! How can we ever cease to sing her praises?
We cannot overstate the importance of Our Lady not only in the Mystery of the Incarnation but also in the life of the Church and by extension, in our own spiritual life. The early Church Fathers said of Our Lady: Concerning Mary, there is never enough. De Maria numquam satis. This is not pious exaggeration. Our Lady reveals the true identity of the Church as servant of the Word of God and she is our model and teacher in our own individual spiritual commitment. Our Lady is the one who most perfectly identifies with Christ, her Son. In the intimate connection among the mysteries of the Christian faith (nexus mysteriorum) Our Lady is never absent. If we read Sacred Scripture with attention and without bias we see the truth of this Catholic approach to the Mystery of God. One does not find Jesus without going through Mary. This was true at Our Lord’s Nativity: The shepherds went with haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph and the Child lying in a manger (Lk. 2:16). And it was no less true as Our Lord offered His Redemptive Sacrifice: for we read in John’s gospel that standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene (Jn. 19:25).