IretonKC at 3300 Old Courthouse Rd, Richmond, VA 23236 US - Our Chaplain's Wisdom....

For us Catholics, January 1st is NOT celebrated as New Year's day but as a Holy Day of Obligation dedicated to our Blessed Mother. This feast of "Mary, Mother of God" is the oldest of many feasts in her honor during the liturgical year. The title comes from the Greek "the Theotokos" - the God bearer. It goes back to the early centuries of the Church during the great controversies concerning the identity of Jesus Christ.

A priest, Arius, denied the divinity of Jesus saying that Christ was a good man possessed by God, but he certainly was not God. So many followed Arius into Arianism there was a fear that the world would go to bed Christian and wake up Arian. Emperor Constantine convened a Council of ALL bishops to resolve the issue. They met at Nicea and the great champions of "othodoxy" were people like St. Athanasius and St. Nicholas. At the end of that Council, Arius and his followers were excommunicated and condemned. The Council stated that without doubt, Jesus is the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit and that there are two natures in Christ. He is both fully God and fully Man! That has remained the teaching of the Church since and it forms part of the Creed.

The next controversy was soon to follow and it had to do with the role of Mary in all this.It was easy to see her as the Mother of Jesus, the Human Nature of Jesus "born of a woman". But how could anyone claim her to be the Mother of God? Some said thatthis just can't be so.Again the Church called a council of bishops and condemmed the priest Nestorius and his followers as heretics. This time the champion was St. Cyril of Alexandria, the pope's representative. It was declared that Christ was fully God and fully manat the same time and always the two could not be separated. So Mary was declared to be "THEOTOKOS" the God bearer.. the one who brought the GOD-Man into the world.. so she, the Mother of Jesus as man as well as Jesus as God. This was the Earliest Pronouncement of the Church about Mary.. hence the January First feast that we celebrate is indeed the earliest Feast of Mary as well as her earliest title.