Before departing from this world, our Lord Jesus Christ placed within our grasp a supernatural help: His Mother Mary. To Her, who holds the sceptre of God in Her hands and governs history, we must turn in supplication.

Newsroom (13/01/2022 09:00, Gaudium Press) Human life is made up of cycles that follow one another. Each beginning is usually insecure and fragile, but the new phase grows stronger as it unfolds, until it reaches its own culmination. Once it reaches fullness, the cycle exhausts itself, announcing the imminence of the next in a chain of successive phases.

So it is with the sun each day, and in the same way the years succeed each other. Every end of the year takes place in a context of balance, of analysis of what was left behind. In turn, every year that begins is the occasion for new projects and brings with it new hopes, but it is also marked by uncertainty, for man never knows what the future holds.

It is precisely for this reason that the Church, wise teacher of life, has established on the first day of the year the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. It is undoubtedly a way for man to consecrate to Her all that he wishes to accomplish during the year that has just begun; it is also a filial recognition that every undertaking, and therefore every year, must begin and end with Her, in Her and through Her. Why?

It was in Mary’s arms that Jesus lay at the moment of His birth, and it was equally in Her arms that the Body of Christ was laid when He was taken down from the Cross. Thus God willed that the passage of His Only Begotten on earth should begin and end at the Immaculate Heart of Her whom He had chosen from all eternity to be His perfect Daughter, Mother, and Spouse.

Queen of the Universe

This historical fact, however, is only the earthly reflection of a much higher mystical reality. Our Lady, constituted by God as Queen of the Universe, truly presides over the government which He exercises over creatures. In Her everything begins, since every initiative comes from grace, and grace always comes to us through Mary; in Her, too, everything ends, since the end of creatures is to give glory to God, and that glory only becomes perfect when it passes through Her most pure hands.

Consequently, Mary plays the role of “pre-cursor” and “post-cursor” in the life of every man and woman. She carefully prepares in every soul the way for Christ’s action and the penetration of His Word, just as at Cana She prepared everything for the Saviour’s first miracle.

But She is also the first Evangelist, who, having received the Divine Word from Her Son, transmits it to all Her children as a mother, as the most faithful interpreter of the Heart of God.

How rightly Mary exclaimed: “All generations will declare Me blessed” (Lk 1:48). She is truly blessed for having believed in the Word of God that was addressed to Her, because all that the Lord promised Her (cf. Lk 1:45) will indeed be fulfilled: Her triumph over evil and the establishment of His Kingdom.

Text extracted from the magazine Heralds of the Gospel, n. 205, January 2019.

Compiled by Sandra Chisholm