We are often fascinated with beginnings. We celebrate different types of beginnings with solemnity and joy, congratulations and good wishes. Over the centuries and especially during the last several decades, the Church has proposed different ways of celebrating New Year's Day. Now we celebrate it as a feast in honour of Mary, the Mother of God.

We have noted before in these pages that originally feast days commemorated major events in salvation history such as the annunciation to Mary, the birth of Jesus, the Resurrection. However the Church is not confined to this way of celebrating, and so other feasts have arisen as the Church creatively found ways of reminding us of important truths. The events of the Annunciation and the birth of Jesus are the first historical stages of God's great work of our salvation. Mary was most intimately involved in these events and that means that, in her humanity, she relates to God in a way that demands that we call her "Mother of God" in order to unfold something of God's mysterious way of dealing with us from within our human history and our human nature.