It is fitting that on New Year’s Day we celebrate the calendar-shattering event in human history: the extraordinary role that a young woman in Galilee played in God’s plan for the human race.
In the Western Church, the young woman is titled ‘Mother of God’. This signifies a relationship, a loving, nurturing relationship. We know that it encompassed a mother’s horror of seeing her son tortured and done to death on the Cross.
Yes, she was a mother, but Mother of God.
How can this be portrayed for our minds to grasp? In the Book of Genesis, the creative act which began all reckoning of the passage of time and seasons was signalled by the Divine Wind hovering over the formless void. When that Holy Gust hovered over Mary, and she responded: ‘Be it done unto me according to thy Word’, the human existence of Our Lord Jesus Christ began, the fulcrum of history from which our calendar begins.
We could pause for a moment to pray that at the end of all history, at the end of all calendars, we may share in Divine life with Mary of Galilee, Mother of God.