“Just as the wonderfulness of motherhood comes to the fore when we hear of the “first babies of the New Year” – the wonderfulness of the motherhood of Mary strikes us deeply when we contemplate Jesus’ birth.” – Bishop Michael
People seem to have quite an interest in the first babies born each New Year’s day. We get precise timings of their birth. Four seconds after midnight, a minute after midnight or even a few minutes after midnight.
Pictures emerge later of satisfied medical staff surrounding a gleaming mother and father presenting their new born son or daughter to the world. I often think that it is a privilege for us to be “let in”, so to speak, on such precious family moments.
There is nothing like the birth of a baby to bring to the fore feelings of wonder and awe before the immense mystery of the gift of new life. We ponder on what the new little one will be called. We imagine what they will become and what type of world they will grow up in and live in themselves.
It is also a time when the wonderfulness of motherhood comes to the fore. The selflessness of pregnancy, the courage of giving birth and the life-long love and care of a mother.
I often think that today’s feast - the Feast of Mary, “Mother of God” – which is celebrated on New Year’s Day – has a little of that “First Babies of the New Year” mood about it.
It draws us into reflecting not just on the birth of Jesus but also on who he actually is and what he is to become. Although, human in all respects, it was clear from the very beginning that there was something special about him.
Although difficult for us to get our human heads around it, his conception was to say the least out of the ordinary. Mary knew that and Joseph knew that. From the start his origins pointed to the divine realm -to God himself. At his humble birth in Bethlehem, mysterious heavenly messengers alerted the shepherds to his other worldly origins.
His name Jesus means “God is with us” – “God Saves” – “God Delivers”. The name he is given is a key to understanding who he is and what he is to become. He is destined in his very being to hold up to the people of his day and indeed to every people and nation since – the fact that God is real, that God wishes good for humanity and that only with God can humanity truly flourish.
From very early on Christians affirmed that in this newborn Child, the creator of all that is … God himself had entered his creation. God had come among us as one of us.
Just as the wonderfulness of motherhood comes to the fore when we hear of the “first babies of the New Year” – the wonderfulness of the motherhood of Mary strikes us deeply when we contemplate Jesus’ birth.
While, in all respects, she is as ordinary as mother as the new year’s day mothers we hear about – she is also a mother like no other. Today, we celebrate her as “Mother of God”. From very early on, just as Christians have held that Jesus is truly God come among us, they have also held that only his mother Mary, out of all women, is truly worthy of the title “Mother of God”. It was through her that God himself entered our human realm.
With the motherly love of Mary to nurture him, Jesus was to grow up in a world that was not without its political and social challenges. In fact, it was such challenges that in the end were to conspire to bring about his violent and bloody end. Today, our new year’s babies take their first breaths. In time they will take their first steps in a world that is challenged in so many ways.
A recent tradition in the Church has been to keep the Feast of Mary, “Mother of God” – New Year’s Day – as the “World Day of Peace”. For Jesus and his message continues to challenge people and nations in every age to strive for better relation between themselves and with God. Today our thoughts instinctively turn to the land of Jesus himself.
The horror of the October attacks on Israel and the disproportionate violence and destruction meted out on Gaza and elsewhere is a terrible stain on our collective humanity and an affront to the “Prince of Peace”.
The continuing conflict in Ukraine carries with it the risk of desensitising ourselves to death and destruction. It brings with it the rise of hatred and the loss of a sense of the God given sacredness of human life.
The ongoing conflict in South Sudan, the tensions in Afghanistan and Myanmar, the situation in Syria and elsewhere cannot be forgotten. The amounts of money spent on warmaking while nations starve is indeed an offence to God.
The destruction of our planet and the endangerment of the future of humankind is truly worrying. Perhaps at no other time in our recent history, has the world stood in such need of the gift of peace.
Each new year’s days – as I watch those reports of the First Babies of the New year- my mind often also turns to those words written by the English poet Minnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957) which touched many during the human heart break of World War II. Her poem “the Gate of the Year” reads:
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown".
And he replied:
"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."
As we take our first steps into the Year 2025, a Jubilee Year, a Holy Year of Hope – let us place our hand into the hand of God himself.
Let us hope that this will be the year when leaders and nations will finally hear and heed the message of peace and reconciliation brought by God himself in Jesus … born of Mary, the “Mother of God”. Amen