By Christopher Wells
Pope Francis marked the beginning of 2025 with the celebration of Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, the Most Holy Mother of God.
In his homily, the Holy Father said that “like a Mother,” Mary points us to her Son and leads us to Jesus.
The mystery of Christmas
Today’s feast, he said, “immerses us once more in the mystery of Christmas,” a mystery summed up in the Second Reading, where St Paul tells us that “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.” These words “echo in our hearts today” and “remind us that Jesus, our Saviour, became flesh and is revealed in the frailty of the flesh.”
That Jesus was born of a woman reminds us “that God became truly man through a human womb” showing us that God is not simply “some vague religious feeling or fleeting emotion,” but “has a face and a Name, and calls us to have a relationship with Him.”
Jesus, the Pope said, “is one of us, and thus is able to save us.”
Jesus shows us the face of God
St Paul’s words also “speak to us about the humanity of Christ” who is “revealed in the frailty of flesh.” Jesus’ coming as a tiny baby, through the Virgin Mary, reveals how God chooses to act: “through littleness and hiddenness.” Jesus, the Pope said, “revealed God’s love in the beauty of His humanity, dwelling in our midst, sharing our daily life… by the frailty of His humanity and His concern for the weak and vulnerable, Jesus shows us the face of God.”
Pope Francis invited us to “entrust this new year to Mary, the Mother of God,” with the hope that we might learn, “like her” to protect “the precious gift of life.”
Cherishing all human life
Today, the Pope continued, on this World Day of Peace, “all of us are invited to take up the summons that flow from the maternal heart of Mary: to cherish life, to care for life, to restore dignity to the lives of everyone ‘born of woman,’ for this is the basis for building a culture of peace.”
This, he said, is the reason for his appeal “for a firm commitment to respect the dignity of human life from conception to natural death.”
“Let us entrust to Mary this new Jubilee Year,” the Holy Father concluded. “Let us entrust to her our questions, our worries, our sufferings, our joys and all the concerns that we bear in our hearts. Let us entrust to her the whole world, so that hope may be reborn and peace may finally spring up for all the peoples of the earth.” – Vatican News
