If you are presiding at the liturgy on January 1, try this: Ask the assembly what we are celebrating today. Most people will look at you as if you just emerged from hibernation. Then, the person who ...

The 1969 Roman Calendar reform recovered Jan. 1 as the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. This is among the oldest feasts associated with the Octave Day of Christmas and reaffirms a basic truth that ...

For Catholics, New Year's Day isn't just the first day of the new year: It's a day of holy obligation. January 1 marks the Solemnity of Mary, a day the honors the role of Mary as the Mother of God, ...

The Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, celebrated on January 1st, is a very appropriate way to begin a new year. Thus, the ideal motto for the New Year should be “Through Mary to Jesus!” This is a ...

The Solemnity of Mary as the Mother of God concludes the octave of Christmas, or the eight days following Christ’s birth. Pope Francis offers Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God in St. Peter ...

Let Mary, the Mother of God, be your guide in the new year, Pope Francis said on Sunday, the first day of 2023. In his Angelus address before a crowd of an estimated 40,000 people in St. Peter’s ...

The Christmas story was only her beginning. Two thousand years later, there’s something about Mary, the mother of Jesus, that continues to inspire and empower Christians around the world. Churches ...

Pope Francis began the new year by urging his fellow Catholics to entrust 2024 to the Mother of God, who “knows our needs” and always intercedes to “make grace overflow in our lives.” The pope made ...

St. Irenaeus said—we only have him in the Latin, not the original Greek—Gloria enim Dei vivens homo. “A living human being is the very glory of God.” No human being, at least not one who is only human ...

Even as an old woman, my mother could still recite the New Year’s wish she had been taught as a small child to pronounce in German. It was a wish that greeted you at your door on New Year’s Day. You ...

Pope Francis reads his homily during the Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, Jan. 1, 2025. (Credit: Vatican Media.) Listen On the first day ...

"Happy New Year!" If you're from Denver, you not only might repeat that greeting through the month, but also leave your Christmas lights on until Jan. 22, the last day of the National Western Stock ...