On 1 January 2025, this day will be an opportunity to look back and to look forward…

The Romans chose to name the first month of the year January after the god Janus who is depicted as having two faces, one looking back, the other forward. On 1 January each year, we can take the opportunity to do just that – to look back over the year just completed, with all its ups and downs and to look forward, usually to a brighter year ahead, a new beginning.

The Church celebrates on this day the feast of Mary, Mother of God with a reading from Numbers 6:24. This is a blessing for all people given from God through Moses:

May God bless you and keep you!
May God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you!
May God look kindly on you and give you peace!

As we begin yet another new year, it is timely to let this blessing flow over each of us and to touch into our everyday experiences.

2024 was a difficult year for many in our world but what blessings did it offer? How was God gracious to us? What were the good things that God so freely gave? Mid the doom and gloom of our world, what blessings/moments of brightness were noticed?

In 2025, what blessings – new beginnings, possibilities for change and dreams not yet lived – do we look forward to? How will we allow God to bless and keep us?

The feast of Mary, Mother of God invites us to look to Mary as we begin this new year. Mary said Yes to God and lived into that Yes as her life unfolded. Along the way, she made choices and lived with the consequences of those choices. No doubt because she followed particular paths and kept promises, she experienced loss, pain, letdowns and disappointments. How similar to our own lives!

Mary wholeheartedly accepted God’s invitation to her and, by honouring her, we are acknowledging that she gave us Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us. On this day we can reflect on her Yes and wholeheartedly say our own Yes to God for whatever we are being invited to during the next days, months, year. Like Mary, our Yes can enable God to be birthed among us once again.

In 2025, may we say Yes to the present moment of life and notice God-with-us in the blessings that we not only receive but also give. As Margaret Silf says:

Carmel Jones rsj

[1] Daily Readings with Margaret Silf, Darton Longman Todd, 2005 London