"MOST IMPORTANT"

Mother of God is the most important title of Our Lady.

GOD IS CLOSE TO US

To call Mary the Mother of God reminds us of this: God is close to humanity, even as a child is close to the mother who bears him in her womb.

"BELOVED CHILDREN"

Ours is the joy of knowing that our solitude has ended. It is the beauty of knowing that we are beloved children, of knowing that this childhood of ours can never be taken away from us. It is to see a reflection of ourselves in the frail and infant God resting in His mother's arms, and to realize that humanity is precious and sacred to the Lord. Henceforth, to serve human life is to serve God.

WELCOME, LOVE, HELP

All life, from life in the mother's womb to that of the elderly, the suffering and the sick, and to that of the troublesome and even repellent, is to be welcomed, loved and helped.

WHAT GOD WANTS US TO BE

... Mary is what God wants us to be, what He wants His Church to be: a Mother who is tender and lowly, poor in material goods and rich in love, free of sin and united to Jesus, keeping God in our hearts and our neighbor in our lives. To set out anew, let us look to our Mother. In her heart beats the heart of the Church.

LEAVE BEHIND USELESS BAGGAGE

Devotion to Mary is not spiritual etiquette; it is a requirement of the Christian life. Looking to the Mother, we are asked to leave behind all sorts of useless baggage and to rediscover what really matters.

MOST PRECIOUS GIFT

The gift of the Mother, the gift of every mother and every woman, is most precious for the Church, for she too is a mother and woman. While a man often abstracts, affirms and imposes ideas, a woman, a mother knows how to "keep", to put things together in her heart, to give life.

"A MOTHER'S HEART"

If our faith is not to be reduced merely to an idea or a doctrine, all of us need a mother's heart, one which knows how to keep the tender love of God and to feel the heartbeat of all around us.

THE PEACE OF JESUS

May the Mother of God, God's finest human creation, guard and keep this year, and bring the peace of her Son to our hearts and to the world.

(Source: Homily, Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and the 51st World Day of Peace, 1/1/2018)