image – da Sassoferato – 1640

Mary’s divine motherhood broadens the Christmas spotlight. Mary has an important role to play in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.he precise title “Mother of God” goes back at least to the third or fourth century. In the Greek form Theotokos (God-bearer), it became the touchstone of the Church’s teaching about the Incarnation. The Council of Ephesus in 431 insisted that the holy Fathers were right in calling the holy virgin Theotokos. At the end of this particular session, crowds of people marched through the street shouting: “Praised be the Theotokos!” The tradition reaches to our own day. In its chapter on Mary’s role in the Church, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church calls Mary “Mother of God” 12 times.

Meditation for the New Year:

“What will tomorrow bring? What will happen to me this year? Will it be better or worse than last year?” Idle questions, useless forebodings. I know only one thing: that today as yesterday, that tomorrow as today, that this year as last, God loves me, and He loves me as my heart yearns to be loved – no, much more than I dare aspire to. I know only that during this year as in the past, I shall continue to live in the arms and in the Heart of Jesus, and that He, with incomparable solicitude, will rule over all things, including each detail of my life, designing all for my good and for my happiness… My heart echoes Bethlehem’s hymn: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.” My soul resounds with the tender accents of Jesus’ farewell: “My peace I leave you.”

-Bishop Luiz Martinez