For one thing, this is the Octave Day of Christmas. The Church takes the major feasts and celebrates them with an octave, an eighth day. That concept comes from the greatest of feasts, Easter. For the Jewish people, the number seven was considered a sign of completion. That symbolism was based on the fact that there are seven days in a week and that, according to the first of the creation stories in the book of Genesis, that was the framework in which they told of God creating the world. So celebrating an eighth day is the reminder that Christ gives us a new creation. In a musical octave, do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do, the eighth note is the same as the first note. So in a Church octave, the eighth day falls on the same day of the week as the first. Thus Christ’s new creation falls does not eliminate the old, but rather fulfills it.
In the Jewish tradition, when a family had a baby boy, the child would be circumcised on the eighth day. So in the former tradition, January 1 was the feast of the Circumcision of the Lord. We always remember that Christ shared our human nature completely and that he lived in accord with the Laws and the customs of his faith.
Today, we instead celebrate this day as the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. Of all the titles we give to our Blessed Mother, this is the one that is central to the mystery of faith. It was for this purpose, for instance, that she was given the grace of the Immaculate Conception. This special feast allows us also to reflect on the nature of Christ’s Incarnation. The title of “Mother of God” was officially given to us at the Council of Nicea, which gave us the Creed we recite at mass, and it especially teaches us about Christ. The union of the human and divine natures of Jesus is so complete that we cannot separate them into different “parts” or “aspects” of who He is. He is completely God and completely human. So we cannot say that Mary is simply the mother of the human part of Jesus. She is truly the Mother of God.
In the late 1960s, Pope Paul VI gave us a special commemoration for the start of the new year. This is a day we set aside for prayers for peace in the world. The new year always gives us hope for a new start. And while we know that there will be tension and strife, we place this new year in the hands of God and ask that there may be peace in our world. That means, of course, that we seek to live that peace in our own lives.
Finally, we all know the secular aspect of the new year, which is a beginning of something new, and that means new possibilities. As of now, for instance, the Pirates have not lost a game all year and are tied for first place. May 2017 be a great year for all of us. Let’s make the most of it, with the grace of God and the prayers of our Blessed Mother.
Father H
