The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
Friends, we made it! January 1st, 2021, y’all. Wow. I don’t think I need to make some cheeky remark or joke about surviving a pandemic or the endless uncertainties we find ourselves. You get it and you’ve heard it.
I don’t want to take into 2021 the heartache, bitterness, or anger that’s found its way into my heart over the past months. I don’t want to look despairingly into the future, fearful of what it holds. What I do want to talk about is hope.
There’s a reason why I can look with hope into this fresh new year and not with a lens of anxiety or stress, and that reason can be found in the second reading today: “As proof that you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir, through God.” I have incredible hope because I know I’m not made for this world. Everything could come crashing down at my feet, and yet, I have the same Spirit that comes forth from the Creator of the Universe, King of Heaven, who is my rock and foundation and the One I build my life on. I have the ability to call God my Father. And He is a good Father.
I am created for Heaven.
This Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, reminds me again and again what we just celebrated a week ago of God becoming Emmanuel, One who is with us. Mary, celebrated as Jesus’ Mother, reminds me that Heaven and Earth collided in a very real and tangible way over 2,000 years ago. Jesus walked this earth and lived a very human life. In Hebrews it says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just a we are — yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus gets it. And as a gift, has given us His very own Mother as our own.
A friend once told me, the evil one attacks us through our past and our future. As we look to the freshness of this new year, I encourage you to be in this present moment, breathing in deeply the richness of God as Father — not looking at regrets in the past or anxiety for the future. The year 2021 could bring more tragedy and heartache, or incredible joys and triumphs, and maybe a mixture of both. But I know that whatever it brings, I can walk into this year with hope that I am known, seen, and loved by the One who created me.