TEXT: Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, January 1, 2025
January 1, 2025 Father De Celles Homily
Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God
January 1, 2025
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church
Springfield, VA
Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas!
Blessed Feast of Mary, Mother of God!
The title “Mother of God” was formally recognized
as proper to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the year 431.
In that year the Bishops of the Church gathered in Ephesus
–which is in modern Turkey–
to condemn the teaching of the Bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius.
Nestorius taught that the man Jesus Christ was not the eternal Son of God,
but merely joined or united to the Son of God, or the “Word,”
in a relationship unique to the man Jesus and the Word.
Because of this Nestorius said that it wasn’t the Word, or the Son of God,
that was born of Mary
and that died on the Cross
–it was only the man Jesus.
You can imagine all the problems this would cause in the doctrine of the Church.
But Nestorius’ teaching, as I said, was completely rejected and condemned
by the Council of Ephesus.
If it hadn’t been, then we wouldn’t have celebrated Christmas seven days ago
–the feast of the day God entered the world as a man—
the day the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
So, it’s fitting today, as we come to the end of the 8-day celebration of Christmas (the “octave of Christmas”),
that we end by celebrating the feast of the human mother, a real woman who became mother of the one who was both God and man: Jesus Christ.
It was in this context of defending the true divinity of the man Jesus that
the Council confirmed the tradition of the earliest Fathers of the Church to refer to Mary as the “Mother of God” or “theotokos,”
because to say she is the “Mother of Jesus” is synonymous with saying that she is the “Mother of God.”
And while this title confers a special dignity and honor on Mary,
it is fitting because it reminds us that any time Mary is honored by the Church, it is always in relation to some honor which we give to her son, Jesus; the Feast of the Mother of God falls within the celebration of God becoming man.
This is Mary’s primary role or vocation.
She is the one who called herself “God’s lowly servant”
and the “handmaid of the Lord.”
And yet, because of her desire and willingness to be God’s lowly servant,
He exalted her by giving her the greatest gift ever bestowed
on any human person:
She was given the gift of the Motherhood of God.
It’s hard to imagine what this means.
An otherwise normal human girl, granted a uniquely holy girl, was given the honor of being the Mother of God.
For some this might be considered a tremendous burden.
It was she who was responsible for caring for and educating the Savior of the World.
Can you imagine the anxiety
one might feel over the awesome responsibility of
caring for the boy Jesus when he fell out of tree
or cut his finger working in St. Joseph’s carpenter shop?
But of course, for Mary, all of this is pure gift.
As today’s Gospel tells us,
“Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”
Mary didn’t know exactly all that was going on
or everything that would happen to her son.
But she did know things that others didn’t.
The angel had told her that He was the Savior of the world,
that He was the one promised from of old, and that He was the Son of God.
She also knew other things that no one had to tell her.
She knew Jesus.
Not just what the Scriptures said of Him, or what Simeon and Anna said,
or what Joseph said, or even what the angel said about Him.
She knew her son.
Mothers tend to know their sons in a very special way.
And this motherly intuition or insight was most likely all the more keen in Mary because of the fact that God the Father
had revealed so much about Him to her.
On top of that, she was a woman of faith and of prayer,
a woman who had never known sin, a woman full of grace,
so that all of her senses were much more alert and receptive
to any sign or any communication that came from her son.
And so, the simple acts of nursing Him at her breast,
or gazing into His childish eyes,
became acts of adoration more profound
than any we could ever personally offer.
The experience of serving our Lord by teaching Him, cleaning Him,
and caring for His illnesses each became intense labors of worship.
Every silly joke He told, every game He played, every prayer He offered,
revealed more to Mary about who her son was and who His Father was than any theologian has ever even hoped to understand.
Hers was an understanding that will never be available to any one in this world.
And because of all this, no one has ever loved Our Lord more perfectly or deeply than the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.
Each of us longs to know and love the Lord Jesus.
But imagine if you fell in love with someone and wanted to marry them,
wanting to make them happy and to make a home they would feel warm, comfortable, and loved in.
Wouldn’t you try to get know your spouse’s family,
to know more about him or her, and to know his likes and dislikes
…to know what family and a home means to him?
And wouldn’t you especially want to get to know and learn
from your spouse’s mother
—especially if your spouse, your husband, is momma’s little baby boy?
Especially if his mother is a wonderful and loving mother
who was good and close to him all his life
and wants to be good and close to you in your life?
No one can know a man like his momma.
No one knows Jesus like His Blessed Mother, Mary.
As we look back on the year just ended,
we see so many ways we failed to know and love the Lord.
But perhaps we also see the ways—by His grace—
that we have come to know Him and love Him.
As we look forward to the year ahead,
and we make our new year resolutions,
let us put at the top of our list
our goal to come to know and love more deeply our Lord Jesus Christ.
To achieve that goal, let us put immediately second on the list
the goal to get to know and love His Mother more deeply.
She calls to us every day and offers us her help
because she loves her son and she loves us…
because this is what God has made her for,
to be the Mother of God, and our mother.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.