Today's feast used also to be known as the Circumcision and the rite is mentioned in the Gospel text. Paul reminds us today that Jesus, the Son of God, also had a mother, His human parent, through whom He became one of us. He was also a Jew, a subject of the Law, of which the circumcision rite is the symbol. We, too, as Paul says, are sons and daughters of God as well as of our human parents. We too are under a law, the law of Christ. In so far as we identify ourselves fully with Jesus, God is truly our "Abba". We are no longer slaves without rights but God's own children with full rights of inheritance to the life of God Himself. We are also brothers and sisters of Jesus and, in a very real sense, Mary is therefore our Mother too.