Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, January 1st 2023
GOSPEL: Luke 2:16-21
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Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

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GOSPEL: Luke 2:16-21
The shepherds hurried away and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. When they saw the child they repeated what they had been told about him, and everyone who heard it was astonished at what the shepherds had to say.
As for Mary, she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen; it was exactly as they had been told.
When the eighth day came and the child was to be circumcised, they gave him the name ‘Jesus’, the name the angel had given him before his conception.
The Gospel of the Lord.       Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

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1. The secret of Christianity is that each one of us can generate divine life! We can each become channels of grace for the world. We do this, like Mary, by welcoming the word of God in our hearts and obediently acting upon it.
The liturgy of the first day of the year celebrates the maternity of Mary. The title of Mary, Theotokos, was proclaimed by the ancient councils and Fathers of the Church to protect the integrity of our faith. It’s a bit paradoxical to say that a creature generates God, but this is the surprise of Christianity. Humanity and God are united in the womb of Mary. The equilibrium in this union is vital. If Jesus were only God, then the love he showed us would have been impossible for us, a superhuman thing. If he were merely human, then his message would have been nothing more than a moralistic system that we should try to follow using our own strengths. The title Theotokos reveals that Jesus is completely human and completely divine, since God took flesh in the womb of a woman, Mary. This is not a philosophical abstraction, but the secret of every Christian action. Human flesh can welcome the power of God. There is a synergy between our impoverished humanity and the true glory of God. On the first day of the year, we celebrate the capacity of Mary to generate divine life, and it is a capacity that extends to each one of us. In a Gospel passage, Jesus says, “Whoever does the will of my Father is my brother and sister and mother.” In other words, we can live the same experience as Mary, consenting for the glory of God to emerge in our works. Each one of us can become a channel of grace for the world.

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2. Our obsession with self-gratification, our idolisation of personal autonomy, prompts us to reject God’s call to welcome and protect new life. How can we be channels of divine life if we reject the vocation to be mothers and fathers of human life?
This highlights a particular problem of our time that frustrates our capacity to generate the divine life. Baptism gifts us with the vocation to perform the works of God, but today people refuse their own fecundity, they lack the willingness to be mothers and fathers. It is not just the reluctance to defend new life, but the delirium of independence, the idol of individual autonomy. This has brought us to a state of solitude, completely caught up in our own reasoning, our own sensuality. The obsession with self-gratification negates our maternity and paternity. In our hearts, we are called to be sources of life. How can we say “yes” to the sublime maternity of spiritual things when we have said “no” to maternity in itself? Human life is a journey from being children to being parents, from being mouths to feed to being hands that protect, nourish and care for others. Let us begin the new year, aware of the beautiful things God wants to accomplish in us, welcoming our call to being mothers and fathers. The alternative is to remain in an infantile and self-absorbed state.