Happy New Year! I welcome 2012, seemingly following 2010 directly. What happened to 2011?? It seems like so much has transpired, that I've been so many places and met so many people, yet the time has flown by! They tell me it only gets worse...
Today is also the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (in Latin: Solemnitās Mariae Mater Deī). We celebrate this great feast, introduced following the proclamation of Mary's motherhood of God at the Council of Ephesus in 431, condemning the heresy of Nestorius, and teaching that a mother is mother of the whole person, not just the body or humanity. We further acknowledge Mary as our own mother, invoking her powerful intercession with her Son in our time of need and offering all that we are and have through her Immaculate hands so that we become a pleasing offering to Him. My own vocation story is quite Marian, having first felt the call while preparing to consecrate my life to Jesus, through Mary, according to the teaching of St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort, and really felt that it was she who suggested that I consider the priesthood as my vocation. She continued to guide me in my discernment and my trials as I completed my undergraduate studies, and I am so grateful to have so good a mother in Mary.
In the new year, let us then place our lives anew into her Immaculate hands, and allow our hearts to be influenced by that contagious purity and love that she most perfectly exhibits among mankind, drawn ever closer to her Son. In this time of predictions of the end of the world, let us place our trust in Divine Providence that what ought to be accomplished in the world is done, saying with Mary: Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum; may it be done unto me according to your word. And let us look forward with joyful hope to the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting, gloria in saecula saeculorum, amen.
I invite you also to read the blog post of Fr. Ed Broom, OMV on this occasion.
Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca
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