When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. // Luke 2:21
Another wave of fatigue hit me as I stood beside the baptismal font, watching the priest pour water over the head of my first-born child. She was only eight days old, and I had not yet recovered from an intense birth experience. But I was there, presenting her to the Lord and giving her the greatest gift I could: adoption into new life as a child of God. This was made possible because the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, while retaining His divine nature, had received His human nature from a woman.
Today is the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, a day on which the Church commemorates the truth that when God became a Man, a human became the Mother of God, providing His human body and nature and bearing God within her very womb.
When her first-born Son was eight days old, He was carried to the synagogue, and, through His circumcision, He entered into the Old Covenant as a human. He shed His first blood on our behalf and began to model for us the life of self-gift to God and others that we are meant to live.
The Second Reading tells us: "When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons" (Galatians 4:4-5).
We see from the life of Christ and from His Mother the God-bearer that to bear God into the world, we are called to lives of dedication to God. Not just a one-time offering at our Baptism, but a continual offering of every moment of every day. We are to offer ourselves again and again.
Sister, on this the first day of the calendar year, ask the Blessed Mother to help you become more like her. Ask her to pray for you to have the grace to know how you are called to bear God into the world and to joyfully accept His call.
Susanna Spencer holds a master's in Theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville and is the Content and Theological Editor for Blessed is She. She is a freelance writer, editor, and speaker living with her philosopher husband and four kids in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She loves reading theology, attending beautiful liturgies, cooking delicious food, and casually following baseball. She is the author of the Gospel Studies including Seek His Kingdom: A Meditation on Matthew; narrator for Found: Advent With the Good Shepherd and Rescued: Lent With the Lamb of God; a contributing author to our children’s devotional prayer book, Rise Up; and Theological Editor of the Blessed Conversations Studies. Find out more about her here.
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