Count your blessings, and "Behold your Mother!"

January the first is a very special day. It marks the beginning of a New Year (we’ll have to remember to put 2011 on those things requiring a date instead of 2010!). It is also the Octave of Christmas during which we have been challenged to “remember” the good things that God has freely given to us. The “remembering” that we do is so much more than a nostalgic look back. Memory in the context of a feast like today is a deeply spiritual activity that grows within us as people of faith, hope and love. We remember how we are blessed by God. At Christmas the blessing is purely and simply the fulfillment of the promise of God to enter fully into our lives to be healer, merciful and forgiving God. God enters us personally in Christ Jesus, born of Mary as the God-man to take from us the bonds of sin, injustice, fear and harm that afflict us because of Adam’s sin.

This is the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.

All the other titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the beliefs taught about her, rest on this singular and profound reality. To be the Mother of my Lord, she had to be conceived without sin (Immaculate Conception); to be the Mother of Jesus, she needed to say "yes" (the Annunciation). About her, Jesus tells her, "Behold your son," and her divinely given maternity of Jesus, becomes a maternity for the Church, for priests, for God's people, often depicted as hiding in her mantel for she is the refuge of sinners, and a sorrowing world is gazed upon with sorrow by the Queen of Peace.

Her power as an intercessor exists because she is the Mother of God. She is Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, and Our Lady of Good Help, along with many other titles representing how she leads us in prayers of adoration, praise and intercession. The comfort she offered to her Son is the comfort she offers to each one of us. This is the solemn day of recognition of the identity of the Woman Clothed with the Son. She is the Mother of God. Rightly, I am to accept what Jesus has said, "Behold, your mother," because she will always lead me to Jesus.

The first reading from the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Numbers sets the tone for today’s celebration. It recounts the words that God spoke to Moses: “This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

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!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites
And I will bless them.”

This blessing reaches into our everyday experiences right at the center of our lives where we meet God-Who-Blesses. New Year’s Day can be highlighted for the resolutions that we take upon ourselves (losing weight, curbing our appetites for food and drink, caring for others, and on and on and on). We might want to resolve this year to remember the concrete ways that we are blessed each day. I think if I am able to do this I might become at a deeper level of my life a Eucharistic servant – called into service by the many blessings that come my way. Can we habitually count the blessings that are ours and thus give ourselves over to God as Jesus Himself did through his life, death and resurrection?

Today’s feast invites us there under the marvelous gaze of Mary, the Mother of God (and our Mother) to remember and to act as Jesus acted in obedience to his Father. Mary’s motherhood is a beacon showing us the way to live our lives and to focus ourselves on her Son, Jesus.

Lord, help us to be blessings-counters as we begin this New Year and to keep our gaze constantly on The Christ who continues to call us into life and service. Help us to keep open to our loving, forgiving, merciful God in the person of Christ Jesus. Amen.