1 January 2027 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19
The Church begins the civil year not with fireworks but with a mother. On the eighth day of Christmas she proclaims the oldest Marian title of all: Mary is Theotokos, Mother of God. The Council of Ephesus (431) defended this title against those who wished to call her only the mother of the man Jesus. The Church answered: the child she bore is one Person, the eternal Son, true God and true man; so she is truly the Mother of God (CCC 495). To honour Mary is to confess who Jesus is.
St Paul gives the shortest Christmas creed in the New Testament: “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.” God's eternity enters time through the yes of one woman. And the purpose is our adoption: “so that we might receive adoption as children.” Because of Mary's Son, the Spirit cries in our hearts, “Abba! Father!” The first reading puts the priestly blessing of Aaron on our lips for the new year: “The LORD bless you and keep you.” In Christ that blessing has a face.
In the Gospel the shepherds find “Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.” Everyone is amazed, “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” On the eighth day the child is circumcised and receives the name Jesus, “the name given by the angel”. The year opens with a Name that means “the Lord saves”, and with a mother who keeps God's deeds in her heart. St Paul VI made this day the World Day of Peace; Mary, Queen of Peace, teaches us to receive the Prince of Peace.
Theme: “God sent his Son, born of a woman.”
Mary's divine motherhood, our adoption, and God's blessing for the new year.
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14
“And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Luke 1:43
Apply: Pray the Hail Mary slowly today, weighing the words “Mother of God”.
“As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” Isaiah 66:13
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” Galatians 4:4–5
Apply: Begin each prayer this week with the word “Abba, Father”.
“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.” Numbers 6:24–26
“But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19
Apply: Write one line each night on what God did that day.
Mary gives us Jesus, and Jesus makes us children of the Father.
Let us begin the year with her, blessed and at peace.
Take-home resolution: Bless your family with Numbers 6:24–26 on every first day of the month this year.
Dear brothers and sisters, a happy and holy new year to you all. The Church begins the year by looking at a mother and her child. On the eighth day of Christmas we celebrate Mary, the Holy Mother of God.
Why such a great title? Because of who her Son is. The child she bore is not a man in whom God lived for a while; he is the eternal Son of God who became man in her womb. One Person, truly God and truly man. That is why the Council of Ephesus in 431 declared that Mary is Theotokos, Mother of God. When we honour Mary, we are really confessing our faith in Jesus.
St Paul says that when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman (Galatians 4:4). Time reached its fullness not in an empire or a palace but in a young woman of Nazareth who said yes. And the purpose of it all is that we might receive adoption as children. Because Mary's Son became our brother, we can call God Abba, Father.
In the Gospel the shepherds hurry to Bethlehem and tell everyone what the angels had said. All who heard were amazed. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19). Amazement passes; pondering stays. Mary teaches us not to rush from one event to the next, but to keep God's deeds in our heart and seek their meaning.
On the eighth day the child receives his name: Jesus, the Lord saves. The first reading gives us the blessing that God told Aaron to place on the people: the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you; the Lord give you peace (Numbers 6:24–26). In Jesus, God's face has shone upon us; in Jesus, God's peace has a name.
So let us begin this year with Mary. Let us ponder each day what God is doing. Let us call on the holy name of Jesus. And let us be people of peace, for today is also the World Day of Peace. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us this year. Amen.
On the eighth day the Child received the name Jesus, which means “the Lord saves”. We begin the year by calling on that name.
📖 Isaiah 43:1
📖 Luke 2:21
Apply: Learn the meaning of your own baptismal name.
📖 Isaiah 45:22–23
📖 Philippians 2:9–11
Apply: Bow your head whenever the name of Jesus is spoken at the Mass.
📖 Joel 2:32
📖 Acts 4:12
Apply: Begin each day this year with the name of Jesus.
The name of Jesus is our programme for the new year: God saves.
Whatever this year holds, we face it in his name.
Take-home resolution: This year I will begin and end each day by calling on the name of Jesus.
Dear brothers and sisters, a blessed new year to all of you. On the eighth day after his birth the Child was circumcised and was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived (Luke 2:21). The name means the Lord saves. God chose it himself.
In the Bible a name is a mission. The angel told Joseph: you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Every time we say the name of Jesus, we confess what he came to do.
Paul tells us that because Jesus humbled himself to the cross, God gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend (Philippians 2:9–10). That is why we bow our heads at his name.
Peter, standing before the council, said: there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). We do not know what this year will bring. But we know the name in which we will face it.
So let us begin the year as the Church begins it: in the name of Jesus. Let it be the first word on our lips in the morning and the last at night. And may the Lord bless us and keep us in his name throughout this year. Amen.
In 431 the Council of Ephesus proclaimed Mary Theotokos, Mother of God. The first day of the year belongs to her and to her Son.
📖 Isaiah 7:14
📖 Galatians 4:4–5
Apply: Pray the Hail Mary slowly today, weighing the words “Mother of God”.
📖 Psalm 77:11–12
📖 Luke 2:19
Apply: Each night this year, recall one thing God did that day.
📖 Numbers 6:24–26
📖 Galatians 4:6–7
Apply: Put your family under Mary's protection for the year.
Mary, Mother of God, is also our mother.
With her we begin the year pondering God's works in our hearts.
Take-home resolution: I will entrust this year to Mary, Mother of God, and keep a habit of thanksgiving each night.
Dear friends, today the Church greets Mary with her greatest title: Mother of God. In the year 431 the bishops gathered at Ephesus defended this title, because the Child she bore is not a man who later became God, but the eternal Son of God made man. Honouring Mary protects the truth about Jesus.
Paul says: when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman (Galatians 4:4). God did not come among us from nowhere. He came through a mother, through a family, through a people.
When the shepherds told what they had seen, Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19). She did not understand everything, but she kept it and turned it over in prayer. That is a good way to live a year.
Paul adds: because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father (Galatians 4:6). Through Mary's Son we become children of God.
So let us begin the year with her. Let us ask Mary, Mother of God, to keep our families, and let us learn from her to ponder each day what God has done. And may the Lord bless us and keep us, and give us peace. Amen.
Children, today we say Happy New Year to Mother Mary! She is the Mother of Jesus, and Jesus is God, so she is the Mother of God.
Mary kept everything about Jesus in her heart. Tonight, before you sleep, tell Jesus one good thing that happened today.
O God, who through the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary bestowed on the human race the grace of eternal salvation, grant, we pray, that we may experience the intercession of her, through whom we were found worthy to receive the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
On the eighth day of Christmas the Church keeps the title that says most about both the child and his mother: Mary is the Mother of God. The readings do not argue the point. They place us beside it. Numbers gives the blessing that Israel's priests spoke over the people, asking for God's face and God's peace. The psalm turns that blessing into a prayer for all nations. St Paul, in the earliest words of the New Testament about Jesus' mother, says that God sent his Son “born of a woman”, so that we might become sons and daughters. In Luke the shepherds find the child, Mary keeps everything in her heart, and on the eighth day the child receives his name. The key words are face, name and child. The blessing asked for in the desert now has a face and a name, and he is with his mother.
Setting.
The Book of Numbers opens with Israel still camped at Sinai, being ordered as a people before the march through the desert. Chapters 5 and 6 give various rules for the purity and holiness of the camp, and this short blessing closes them. It is given to Aaron and his sons, the priests, so it was meant to be spoken aloud over the people.
It is among the oldest prayers of the Bible still in use. Two tiny silver amulets, found in 1979 in a burial cave at Ketef Hinnom near Jerusalem and dated to about 600 BC, carry words of this blessing. They are centuries older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Jews still hear it in the synagogue today, and parents in many Jewish homes say it over their children on the eve of the Sabbath.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“The Lord bless you and keep you;” (6:24)
The “you” is singular in Hebrew throughout the blessing. It is said over the whole people, and yet each person hears it spoken to himself or herself.
“the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;” (6:25)
The word “gracious” means mercy that is not earned. The Church hears this verse with the words of St Paul: God has shone in our hearts to give the light of his glory “in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).
“the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.” (6:26)
To lift up one's face toward someone is to look at them with favour. This verse is why the reading suits 1 January, the World Day of Peace: peace is first of all God's gift.
“So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” (6:27)
The priest speaks, but God blesses. To carry God's name is to belong to him. The Gospel of today ends with another name being given.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that blessing is “a divine and life-giving action, the source of which is the Father” (CCC 1078). It also says that every baptized person is called to be a blessing and to bless (CCC 1669). The Roman Missal uses this text as one of its solemn blessings at the end of Mass. St Francis of Assisi wrote it out in his own hand for Brother Leo, and that small parchment is still kept in Assisi. Luke's Gospel closes with Jesus lifting up his hands and blessing his disciples (Luke 24:50), as the priests of Israel blessed the people. On this day, Mary shows us the face the blessing asked for.
Setting.
Psalm 67 is a short community prayer. Verse 6 mentions a harvest, so many think that it was sung at a harvest thanksgiving. Its first line takes up the blessing of Numbers 6 and turns it into a prayer. “The Lord bless you” becomes “God be gracious to us”. Then comes the surprise: Israel asks for this blessing so that the other nations may come to know God.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us,” (67:1)
The people answer the priest. The words of Numbers are now in their own mouths.
“that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations.” (67:2)
The little word “that” is the heart of the psalm. God's blessing is never given only for those who receive it.
“Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.” (67:4)
God is not only Israel's shepherd. He guides the nations too. Two days from now, the Church will celebrate wise men from the East being guided to Bethlehem.
“May God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him.” (67:7)
The Hebrew can be read as a statement or as a wish. The NRSV takes it as a prayer, and the Malayalam POC as a statement of what God has done. Both hold true.
How the Church reads it.
At Christmas the Church hears the psalm's hope fulfilled. Mary's child is the saving power of God made known to all peoples, as Simeon will say when he holds him: “my eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:30). The Second Vatican Council teaches that the Church is the sign and instrument of unity for the whole human race (Lumen Gentium 1). Psalm 67 reminds her of the same thing: she is blessed in order to be a blessing.
Setting.
St Paul writes this strong letter to the Christian communities of Galatia, in what is now central Turkey, perhaps in the mid-50s. Some teachers were telling these Gentile believers that they must also take up circumcision and the Law of Moses. Paul answers that they have already become God's children through faith in Christ.
Just before our reading he uses a picture from family life: a young heir, though he will one day own everything, lives under guardians like a slave until the date his father has set (4:1–2). Our reading tells of that date.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,” (4:4)
The Son is sent, so he existed before he was born. He is born of a woman, so he is truly one of us. These few words hold together what the Council of Ephesus would later defend.
“in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” (4:5)
“Redeem” is the language of buying someone out of slavery. The Son accepts our condition so that we might share his.
“And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”” (4:6)
Notice who is crying out: the Spirit himself, within us. Christian prayer begins when the Son's own prayer is heard in our hearts. Paul changes from “you” to “our”, and so includes himself.
“So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” (4:7)
Paul now uses the singular “you”, as Numbers does. He says this to each person. And he says “through God”: being an heir is God's gift, not something we have earned.
How the Church reads it.
The Second Vatican Council opens its great chapter on Mary with these very verses (Lumen Gentium 52). The Catechism quotes them to explain the whole faith in the Son of God (CCC 422), and reads “the fullness of time” as the moment of the Annunciation (CCC 484). It also takes v. 6 as a text of the joint mission of the Son and the Spirit (CCC 683, 742). St Irenaeus put the exchange in one line: the Word became man so that man might become a son of God (Against Heresies 3, 19; quoted in CCC 460). Mary's motherhood is thus not a private honour. Through her the Son became our brother, and we became God's children.
Setting.
The angel has just told the shepherds about the Saviour and given them a sign: a child in a manger (2:12). Today's Gospel repeats part of the Gospel for the Mass at Dawn on Christmas Day, and adds one verse, the naming on the eighth day. In this way the Octave closes with the circumcision and the name.
Circumcision on the eighth day was the sign of the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17:12; Leviticus 12:3). A Jewish boy entered his people's covenant on that day.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.” (2:16)
The sign the angel gave is plain and poor. God's glory, which shone around the shepherds in the field, is here a child in a feeding trough, with his mother and Joseph beside him.
“and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.” (2:18)
Luke says only that they were amazed. Amazement is not yet faith. Compare the next verse.
“But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” (2:19)
The word “but” sets her apart from the others. She does not yet understand everything, and Luke will say the same of her again at 2:50–51. Faith, for Mary, was also a long road of pondering. The Council speaks of her “pilgrimage of faith” (Lumen Gentium 58).
“The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God” (2:20)
They go back to the same sheep and the same fields, but not as the same men. In this they resemble those who go home from Mass.
“After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” (2:21)
The Son of God enters the covenant of his own people, and for the first time his blood is shed. Mary and Joseph obey the Law, and they also obey the angel: the name is not their choice.
How the Church reads it.
The Council of Ephesus (431) defended the title Theotokos, “God-bearer”, against those who would call Mary mother only of the man Christ. St Cyril of Alexandria explained that this does not mean that divinity began in her, but that the one born of her in the flesh is God the Word (in substance). The Catechism teaches the same: Mary is truly Mother of God, because the one she conceived as man was none other than the Father's eternal Son (CCC 466, 495). St Augustine says that Mary conceived Christ in her mind before she conceived him in her body (in substance), and v. 19 shows us that same inner life. The Catechism adds that Jesus learned to pray from this mother, who “kept in her heart” the great things of God (CCC 2599). On the circumcision it says that it marks his entry into Abraham's descendants and foreshadows Baptism (CCC 527). And of the name it says that it is the one name that contains everything (CCC 2666).
How can God have a mother, when God has no beginning?
Mary did not give the Son his divinity. The Son is eternal. She gave him his human nature. But a mother is mother of a person, not of a nature, and the person she bore is the eternal Son of God. That is why the Church calls her Mother of God (CCC 466, 495). The title guards the truth about Jesus: the child at her breast is truly God. It does not make her a goddess. She is a creature, saved by her Son, and the Church worships God alone.
Paul says only “born of a woman”. Does that speak against the virginal conception?
No. Paul is not discussing the manner of Jesus' conception here. He is saying that the Son truly became human and entered the human story. He neither denies nor describes the virginal conception. Matthew and Luke tell of it clearly (Matthew 1:18–25; Luke 1:26–38), and the Church has confessed it from her earliest formulas of faith (CCC 496).
Why was the Son of God circumcised?
Because he truly became a son of Israel. By circumcision he entered the covenant of Abraham and accepted life under the Law (CCC 527). Paul says the same in today's second reading: “born under the law”. The Church honours this: her Saviour, his mother and the apostles were Jews, and the Church lives from the root of Israel (Nostra Aetate 4; CCC 839).
In the older Roman calendar 1 January was kept as the Circumcision of the Lord. The calendar revised after the Second Vatican Council restored here the ancient Roman memory of the Mother of God. St Paul VI explained that the solemnity honours Mary's part in the mystery of salvation, and that it is also a fitting day to pray for peace (Marialis Cultus 5). He began the World Day of Peace on this day in 1968. Whether Mass today is of obligation depends on the country and diocese. One of the oldest prayers to Mary, “We fly to your protection, O holy Mother of God”, comes from the Greek-speaking Church of the first centuries. Every Hail Mary says it again: “Holy Mary, Mother of God”.