The Church begins the civil New Year not marking the annual passing of time but celebrating Mary Mother of God – Theotokos – from whom Jesus received His human nature.
I came across this article by John Grondelski, “Why the Church begins the year celebrating Mary, the mother of God,” published at the Catholic News Agency and the National Catholic Register. As always, Holy Mother Church reminds us to celebrate the transcendent amidst all the hedonistic pursuits of the secular world around us. Celebrations are wonderful when rightly ordered.
The short article is well worth reading not just to understand the history of this feast, but the heresies about Jesus, true God and true man, that arose from the beginning, and Mary’s role in it. Given our modern catechetical laxity, how many people even realize that Jesus has two distinct, unmixed, and inseparable natures in His one person? Well, why does it matter? According to the article:
These are not just ancient debates. What we say about Christology also expresses what we believe about human anthropology, who we are. Our modern culture often divides the human person from human nature, reducing our nature — which is an integral part of our humanity — to something thought to be “subpersonal,” instrumental, subject to manipulation. Catholic theology resists this because what our quasi-Gnostic mentality calls “subpersonal” is actually quite personal, and since persons should be loved and not used, attacks on human nature are hardly “loving.” They are attacks on the human person, integrally considered. St. John Paul II worked tirelessly to emphasize that truth.
John Grondelski, “Why the Church begins the year celebrating Mary, the mother of God”.
One cannot understand Catholic health care without understanding how integral human nature is to well-being, not just “health”. When Grondelski write, “…persons should be loved and not used,” that applies even to a person about themselves requesting interventions contrary to human nature and our ultimate ends.
Let us turn to Mary, Mother of God in our struggles to practice according to these truths, and ask her to open the hearts of those around us to God’s profound love in it all. Happy New Year.
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