Luke 2:16-21: “The shepherds came with haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger. When they saw it, they made known what had been told to them about this child. And all who heard it were astonished at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart…“

What a joy for me, a Christian, on this 1st day of the year, to celebrate with the Church its mother in heaven under the greatest of her titles: MOTHER OF GOD! Mother of God, she was, since she gave life, then nourished, accompanied until his death her Son, in the unique person of whom divinity and humanity were intimately united.

As she carried her Son, she carries us in a very maternal solicitude. She opens us to the action of the Holy Spirit so that we may let ourselves be transformed by Him. In many apparitions, she comes to awaken her children on earth, so that they do not forget what is essential.

For this new year, I wish us to become more children of God. But what is a child of God? John says it in his first letter: “God is love: whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” Being a child of God means becoming ever more alive, ever more ‘loves’. God’s children are recognized by the love that animates them and that they manifest.

Yes, let us wish, in this new year, not to be content with existing but to be ‘living’. God is ‘the Living’ by definition. The Trinity is only a bubbling of Life. The creation that surrounds us gives us only a tiny idea of this prodigious vitality of God.

Happy New Year to all of you with Mary, Our Mother who takes care of us with her gentleness, her tenderness, her smile and her compassion towards us, who are sons and daughters of God.

Marco Cattaneo, Director