Daily Reflections - January 1,2013

Be with Jesus!

 

Every life, every beginning starts with birth. Birth never happens without a mother. Every time a baby is born, a mother is born as well. It’s either you are a new mother or a mother once more.

Eight days after Christmas, when the eternal Word of God was made flesh and was born into the poverty of our humanity, we celebrate the motherhood that was likewise born in the Incarnation.

Children rarely venture into something new and unknown without fear and insecurity. Having a mother who stands nearby or to hold on to, to consult or talk to, makes it less so. Remember your first dental appointment? Your first day of school? Your first commute alone? Your first job interview?

Much as we always psyche ourselves up to enter 2013 with vibrant hope, courage and optimism, entering a New Year always seems to bring back, to a greater or less degree, the uncertainties of our childhood days. Today, Holy Mother Church gives us the greatest of all mothers — Mary, Mother of God — as an assuring companion as we begin 2013.

As we ponder on the image painted by St. Luke, notice the plainness of the scene: “The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger.” The place was unadorned, simple and uncomplicated. It was simply Joseph and Mary, with Jesus lying in the manger.

Today’s feast of Mary, the Mother of God, is a beautiful reminder. Mary was with Jesus. The Nativity scene is always a peaceful scene not because Mary (and Joseph) was so assured and unafraid. For sure, the young mother was also afraid, unsure and apprehensive of what could be. But Mary was with Jesus. The baby she delivered is the One who would deliver the world. Fr. Joel Jason

 

REFLECTION QUESTION: What would you never begin 2013 without? Mary proposes an answer. Never be without Jesus. Never begin 2013 without Jesus.

 

Oh Mary, with you we rejoice, and to Jesus we pray, “Lead us kindly light... Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step is enough for me.”