“The LORD bless you and keep you! The LORD let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you! The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!” (Numbers 6:24-26)

The major theme for this Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the “Mother of God” focuses on her title “Theotokos,” which is one of the dogmas of our faith promulgated at the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D., declaring that her Son Jesus Christ is both true God and true man: one person with two natures (divine and human) intimately and hypostatically united, and the importance of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of the Church and our lives.

We come also today to celebrate the first day of the civic calendar year, which the Church commemorates and dedicates to the motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our heavenly mother, asking her to intercede for us to God to obtain God’s abundant blessings throughout all this year, to praise Him for the incarnation of His only begotten Son coming into our world and lives, and for revealing His mysterious plan for our salvation.

Non-Catholics sometimes believe that we worship Mary as a goddess who gave birth to our God Jesus and argue that there is no Biblical foundation for honoring her and that Catholics worship her and make her equal to God. They fail to understand the reasons for her title the “Theotokos = Mother of God.” We definitively cannot and must not worship Mary, equate or replace her with God. Rather, we honor, respect, seek and love her, primarily because God honors her by choosing her before the foundation of the world to become the mother of Jesus Christ, who is truly one person with two natures (human and divine), when Jesus, the second person of the Most Holy Trinity, took on our flesh and became man.
        
God does not want us holding a relationship of Transaction but Transformation. Therefore, Dynamic Christian disciples are those who (1) BELIEVE, (2) GROW, (3) SERVE, (4) LOVE and (5) LEAD others to Jesus. Today’s topic invites us to appreciate God’s infinite blessings to us, giving us our heavenly mother the Blessed Virgin Mary the “Theotokos” and our savior Jesus Christ, who brings us true peace, to repent our sins, to exercise our Christian stewardship, to use our time, treasure and talents to love God above all and to love our neighbors as ourselves, participating in the works of mercy, to accomplish God’s will in our lives to glorify God. 

How can we appreciate God’s infinite blessings, improve ourselves with new resolutions in this New Year?   

Wishing you a blessed week in the Lord.