The first day of the year is devoted to the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, emphasizing Mary’s role in salvation history and providing an opportunity to share in her joy at welcoming Christ to the world. 

Christians celebrated this feast as early as the seventh century, although it was not formally added to the liturgical calendar until 1931 by Pope Pius XI. The Solemnity is a holy day of obligation, which means Catholics must attend Mass and observe the day as one of rest, avoiding unnecessary work.

This Solemnity recognizing Mary’s divine maternity affirms a dogma central to the Christian understanding of the Incarnation: that Jesus is one Person, Who has both a divine nature and a human nature. This union of the two natures through Jesus’ Incarnation is called the hypostatic union.

In the fourth century, a heretic named Nestorius had taught contrary to this. He claimed that the Blessed Virgin Mary was not God-bearer or the Mother of God — in Greek this title is Theotokos — but rather that she was only the mother of the human person of Jesus. According to Britannica, the heresy of Nestorianism claims that there is a human person of Jesus and a Divine person of Jesus, thereby denying the Incarnation. 

The Council of Ephesus convened in 431 to address and ultimately formally condemn this heresy. The Council declared that Mary is the mother of God, and that a person would be “anathema” (excommunicated) if he or she denies that Jesus is both God and man.   

On Christmas Day in 1931, 1,500 years after this Council, Pope Pius XI gave the encyclical Lux Veritatis, “The Light of Truth.” In this encyclical, he wrote about the Incarnation, the Council of Ephesus, and Our Lady’s divine maternity.

“[I]f the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary is God, assuredly she who bore him is rightly and deservedly to be called the Mother of God,” the Pope wrote. “If there is only one person in Christ, and this is Divine, without any doubt Mary ought to be called, by all, not the mother of Christ the man only, but Theotocos, or God-bearer. Let us all, therefore, venerate the tender Mother of God, whom her cousin Elizabeth saluted as ‘the Mother of my Lord’ (Luke i. 43) …”

Pope Pius XI later rhetorically asked why some non-Catholics “bitterly condemn” Catholics’ pious love of Mary, “as though we were withdrawing the worship due to God alone?”

“Do they not know,” he continued, “or do they not attentively consider that nothing can be more pleasing to Jesus Christ, who certainly has an ardent love for his own Mother, than that we should venerate her as she deserves, that we should return her love, and that imitating her most holy example we should seek to gain her powerful patronage?” 

Veneration and worship are two distinct actions — the former gives reverent respect and honor to the saints, and the latter is owed and directed to God alone. 

Celebrating the birthday of Jesus Christ on Christmas is a celebration of the Incarnation, God becoming man. Catholics observe the octave of Christmas — Dec. 25 and the next seven days — as the feast of Christmas itself. The octave is a joyful liturgical period in the Church’s calendar that affords a time for deeper reflection on the reality that Jesus is both God and man. 

A beautiful means of reflecting on this is through contemplation of Mary’s divine maternity. As with the birth of any child, the mother holds an irreplaceable role and relationship in this moment of new life. Moreover, her identity as mother does not diminish as her child grows older. 

For Mary, the mother of Jesus, her maternal love for her Divine Son was unwavering throughout every stage of Jesus’ life. She was with Him at His first public miracle; she stood beneath Him as He hung on the cross; she held Him after He was brought down from it, lifeless; she received Him in joy after He rose from the dead. 

And at the end of Mary’s earthly life, Jesus, Who has always loved His mother very much, ensured that she was assumed into Heaven, body and soul. There, Mary was crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth.

Years prior to this, Mary was in a stable at Bethlehem with her newborn Son Jesus, the Incarnate Second Person of the Holy Trinity, at the first Christmas. 

This nativity is one of the seven joys of Mary, who, as His mother, was privileged to receive Jesus in such a unique way. Especially on this Solemnity, the faithful are invited to celebrate Mary’s divine Maternity, and share in her Christmas joy by embracing Jesus with love.

This article originally appeared on CatholicVote on Dec. 31, 2024.