OMELIE / Omelie EN

01 gen 2026

01/01/2026 - Mary, Mother of God

01/01/2026 - Mary, Mother of God

First reading Num 6:22-27 from Psalm 66 Second reading Gal 4:4-7 Gospel Lk 2:16-21

This day is full of messages! We exchange greetings, or rather, blessings for the new year, which we hope will be a happy and peaceful time for us and for everyone. And that is why today we celebrate the Day of Peace: those who speak today, heads of state or religious leaders, cannot remain silent on this subject, and they seek to give answers and advice to the whole world, to satisfy the common desire of all to remove the occasions and causes of conflict, which unfortunately continue to cause suffering to families, nations, peoples and continents.

The liturgy of the Church then celebrates a special solemnity, the consequence and completion of the mystery lived in this time. The Son of God became man, he is among us. He is obviously presented to us by a Mother. It is not she who saves us, but she who presents the Saviour to us.

God has used and continues to use her to give us Jesus. And she is not a shop assistant who takes something from the shelf to hand it to us, but a Mother. God did not impose his will on her, but chose to ask her for her willingness in complete freedom, and placed in her the new life that becomes the Life, the Way and the Truth for us all.

She is the Mother of Life, the Way and the Truth: why not simply say “Mother of God”? The one born of her is “called the Son of the Most High”, and he will apply to himself that “I Am” which is the name of God; therefore, she is rightly called Mother of God. This title is not a source of pride for her, because it is a title given to her in the service of the true and full knowledge of her Son.

Mary lives her motherhood in silence. The Gospel presents her to us in this way. Her silence is joyful listening to the Word she holds in her arms, the Word that was fulfilled in her when she was visited by the angel, and which then filled her whole life, changed it and made it precious for the whole world. ‘For her part, she kept all these things, pondering them in her heart’: Mary's silence is rich, full, mysterious.

Everything she heard and saw referred to her Son, whom she knew to be the Son of God! Everything was an occasion for her to contemplate and pray.

We too were present in Mary's prayer: not because she was thinking of us - in fact, her mind was entirely occupied by that Son who needed her hands, her eyes and her ears - but because her motherhood still influences our lives. We enjoy her motherhood, we feel enveloped and enriched by it.

All our loneliness is consoled and filled by her, by her tenderness, like the loneliness of Jesus.

All our uncertainty is transformed into serenity by her gentleness, like Joseph's uncertainty.

All our questions are dispelled by her confident gaze, like the questions of the shepherds.

Her lips pronounce the name, Jesus, because that is what the angel had foretold her: ‘you shall call him Jesus’. And certainly no one tired of hearing that name spoken by her voice, neither the shepherds, nor Joseph, nor even the angels themselves who watched over the Child, because heaven had descended entirely upon earth.

Let us begin the new year by listening to the name of the child spoken by Mary's lips, and let us try today, several times, to accompany her voice with our own. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! It is a powerful way to begin this part of our lives, invoking, praising, loving, adoring and listening to the name of Jesus. It is a name that does not leave us as it finds us, because it contains the power of God, the power of God's love.