In today’s liturgy, Mary, the true Mother of Jesus, God-man, stands out. Thus, today’s solemnity is not celebrating an abstract idea but a mystery and an historic event: Jesus, Christ, a divine Person, is born of the Virgin Mary who is his Mother in the truest sense.

Today, too, Mary’s virginity is highlighted in addition to her motherhood. These are two prerogatives that are always proclaimed together, inseparably, because they complement and qualify each other. Mary is a Mother, but a Virgin Mother; Mary is a virgin, but a Mother Virgin. If either of these aspects is ignored, the mystery of Mary as the Gospels present her to us, cannot be properly understood.

As Mother of Christ, Mary is also Mother of the Church, which was proclaimed by Pope Paul VI at the Second Vatican Council.

Lastly, Mary is the spiritual Mother of all humanity, because Jesus on the Cross shed his blood for all of us, and from the Cross he entrusted us all to her maternal care.

Let us begin this new year, therefore, by looking at Mary, whom we received from God’s hands as a precious "talent" to be made fruitful, a providential opportunity to contribute to bringing about the Kingdom of God.

Let us give thanks to the Lord for the gift of a new year, and let us ask Mary, Mother of God, to help us to welcome her Son and, in him, true peace. Let us ask her to sharpen our perception so that we may recognize in the face of every human person, the Face of Christ, the heart of peace.

—Excerpted from the homily for the Mass celebrating the Solemnity of the Mother of God, January 1, 2007.