Quickies: For Our Lady

     Catholics celebrate January 1 as the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. It also commemorates the day Mary and Joseph presented the infant Jesus to the priests to be circumcised. The ritual circumcision of a male child signified his formal entry into the Jewish people.

     The occasion wasn’t as significant as Mary’s own acceptance of her role as the Mother of God. Nevertheless, it was significant among the rituals of the Jewish people. It implicitly recognized the child Jesus as one among His own – yet only months earlier, Mary and her unborn Child had been in mortal danger, precisely because His conception was known to be outside of wedlock: in those days a stoning offense. With the circumcision of the baby Jesus, all possibility that the clerical authorities of the time would punish her, or Him, had been laid to rest.

     It was also the occasion of the encounter with Simeon, whom God had promised would see the Messiah in the flesh: yet another confirmation that the virgin mother had not hallucinated the angelic Annunciation of her role.

     Reflect on how great was the hazard for which Mary had volunteered herself. Yet she accepted it. In doing so, she accepted not only her role as the Mother of God, but also the sorrows that would attend it, all the way to the Crucifixion. Had she declined it, God would not have imposed it on her, for under the veil of Time He does not coerce His creatures.

     Which is why Catholics venerate Mary as the Great Intercessor, highest of the saints, the Mediatrix of grace whose petitions her Son will not refuse.

     May God bless and keep you all throughout the Year of Our Lord 2016.