New Year Day, Year B

New Year Day, Year B

My brothers and sisters, happy new year. When did the celebration of New Year day begin? It began in the year 153BC. And the reason for it was that the Roman consul began to take his office on January 1, and because the Romans were in charge, it spread throughout the Roman Empire and today it is a worldwide celebration. So, originally, it had nothing to do with the Church.

But as we celebrate the New Year, it is important for us to celebrate it from the Christian point of view. And I want to begin with a reflection on the meaning of time. Christians have always seen time as a gift of God to us, but how we use time is our gift to God. So it is important for us to use time well. The ancients and some religions have the notion of time as cyclical. They got the notion from the changing of seasons. We see the rainy season come and go and dry season sets in over and over again. But that’s not how we Christians understand time. It is not cyclical but lineal which means that it goes from one point to the future that God has planned and every step along the way is a time of grace, a time of love and we believe that at the first Christmas, God entered into time from His eternity and from that moment, the world has changed forever.

The Church does not just celebrate the New Year, the Church celebrates at least three things and I am going to talk about them briefly. First of all, we celebrate the octave of Christmas. Christmas happened eight days ago. Octave means eight. The second thing we celebrate is the circumcision of Jesus and in a sense his naming ceremony. Thirdly, and most importantly, we celebrate the solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. These are the three things I will like to talk about.

The really big feasts of the Church are celebrated eight days – the Easter, Pentecost and Christmas. The Church celebrates Christmas for eight days though the Christmas season continues. At Christmas we celebrate the truth that God became man. He remained what He was, God and became what He was not, man. Although the two natures; divine and human remain distinct, He is one person. He became man to redeem us and make us adopted sons and daughters of God. This is why we can look up and say “God, listen to me, I am your son and you are my Father.” Isn’t it worth celebrating for eight days?

In the second reading we heard St. Paul say, in the fullness of time God sent His son born of a woman, born under the law. What does the law say about a male son after eight days of birth? He has to be circumcised on the eight day as an external sign of being a member of the people of God. Jesus was circumcised on the eight day and given the name which the angel had announced – Jesus which means God saves. This was the celebration of the Church on this day before the liturgical reform

Most importantly we celebrate the solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. The second reading today from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is thematically chosen. It goes with the theme of the day. This is the only time St. Paul will mention the Mother of Jesus. Paul never talks about Mary and never mentioned her. But on this key occasion he writes these beautiful words, “God sent forth His son born of a woman.” This will seem a fleeting reference to Mary, but it is very important. In this statement, “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman,” we see the mystery both of Jesus’s divinity and humanity. On the one hand, Jesus is the Eternal Son of God sent by God from heaven to come and take our human nature. On the other hand, Jesus is the Son of man, the son of a woman and not just any woman, the son of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is the truth of the Incarnation. Jesus is fully human and fully divine. He is not a mixture of both.

In those days a priest called Arius began to preach that Jesus is inferior to the Father and this caused a great commotion and dispute that wanted to tear the Church apart. This led to the council called the council of Ephesus in 431. The Church defined and confessed the truth that Mary is not just the mother of the man Jesus as some argued but of the divine person, Christ the Son of God. Some taught that Jesus was man until after the baptism following the descent of the Holy Spirit, a heresy called adoptionism and some thought, He became divine after the resurrection. The Church teaches that from the moment of his conception he is fully God and fully human. In Luke 1: 43, filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth declared, how is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord will come to me. The Greek word Kurios which she used translates the Hebrew word that is used exclusively for the God of Israel. Mary was called the theotokos. The Greek word theotokos is a composite of two Greek words; ‘theos’ and ‘tokos.’ While ‘theos’ means ‘God,’ ‘tokos’ means bearer or to give birth. So, in English we say, “Mother of God.”

So, what is the significance of this definition? When the Church makes a definition about Mary, it is always to shed light or to safeguard something important about Jesus and in this case, it is the truth that Jesus is true God and true man as we profess in the Creed. He is not half God and half man but fully God and fully human.

When we celebrate the New Year, we ought to celebrate new year with joy and thanksgiving. I will encourage you to make some resolutions; resolutions about becoming a better person. Some will make resolutions about how to lose weight only a couple of days, some will like to give up smoking or be more reasonable in drinking and eating. But the best kind of resolution is to be more serious with our faith and to live it, to be more practical with our faith.

Fr. Chidi Onwuka msscc

Happy New