We begin the new year asking for God’s blessing. We all want to be blessed, but depending on who you ask, a blessing can mean different things. For some people, to be blessed means having nothing but good outcomes. The job is going well, I feel blessed. The family is united, I feel blessed. Unexpected good news, I feel blessed. It often revolves around positive experiences. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting prosperity in every area of your life, but the biblical definition of blessing is different.

The first reading is one of the most famous blessings and it comes from the Book of Numbers: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace. So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

Notice how nothing there says anything about financial security, health, or good fortune. Rather, the way God blesses his people is by placing his name upon them.

Names in Scripture are much more significant than in our modern cultures. A name represented the very essence of the person or the thing that was named, which is why, when God calls people to conversion or mission, he sometimes even gives them a new name. Abram received the name Abraham. Simon received the name Peter.

The names of gods also had great significance. When God chose the Jews to be his people in the Old Testament, God revealed his name to them. When God gives Moses the mission to lead the people out of Egypt, Moses asks, “When they ask who sent me, what do I tell them? What is your name?” There were many gods in Egypt. Among the most popular in that region were Baal, Moloch, Astarte, and Asherah. But rather than giving a proper name, God tells Moses Ehyeh asher ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה), which translates to “I am who I am.” In the next verse, God shortens this to YHWH (יהוה), which is translated as “the LORD.”

What God gives Moses is not so much a proper name as a phrase that emphasizes God’s self-existence. God is eternity. In other words, he is telling Moses, I am not another god among the many. I am the source of all life itself. I do not exist. I am existence.

So God blesses Moses and the Israelites with this knowledge. In Deuteronomy 28 we read, “The Lord will affirm his blessing upon you and on all your undertakings, provided that you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. He will establish you as a people sacred to himself, as he swore to you, so that when all the nations of the earth see you bearing the name of the Lord, they will stand in awe of you.”

To receive God’s name was a great privilege, and this led to the second commandment: “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.” In its original context, this commandment was not about swearing or saying “oh my God.” It was about living in a way that reflected what you knew about God. In other words, do not call yourself a believer in Yahweh if you are not going to live with integrity. Today, that means do not call yourself a Christian if you are not going to act like one.

And so it is within this context of God’s blessing as knowledge of who God is that we begin the new year reflecting on how we came to receive God’s blessing in Jesus through Mary, under her title Theotokos, Mother of God.

Mother of God is both a dogmatic title and a defined dogma of the Catholic faith, solemnly proclaimed at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD to affirm that Mary is truly the Mother of the divine Person of Christ, who is God incarnate. To call her Mother of God is not to say that she herself is divine. Rather, she bore the divine Son of God, Jesus.

The name of Jesus itself is significant. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Yeshua, meaning “the Lord saves.” Jesus is named as the one who exercises the saving power of God. At Christmas, we heard the Gospel of Matthew call Jesus Emmanuel, “God with us.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus calls himself by the name Yahweh revealed to Moses, to assure us that the power of God is present with us, through him, with him, and in him: “I am the bread of life. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus is present in every human experience.

To call Mary Mother of God is to recognize all of this in Jesus, and this title was used very early in Church history. The most ancient prayer to Mary is an Egyptian prayer called the Sub Tuum Praesidium, which says, “We fly to your patronage, O Holy Mother of God. Despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and most blessed Virgin.” It was written around the year 200.

Some theologians heard that prayer and argued that Mary should not be prayed to as the Mother of God, because how could any human being come into such intimate contact with the divine? But at the Council of Ephesus, two hundred years later, the title Mother of God was affirmed, proclaiming that through her, God truly does enter fully into all the struggles of human life, a presence that we desperately need.

The Apostle Paul writes to the Galatians, “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law.” Christianity makes the radical claim that human laws will never succeed in bringing order or peace to human life. Something more is needed. If we allow the love of Jesus to come into our hearts, that love will transform us so that we will no longer need laws or commandments to restrain us from hurting ourselves or others. Laws exist to hold us accountable. Love transforms us from within.

Paul says, “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father.’”

Abba is the most intimate of all the names of God. It is the name Jesus himself used in his own prayer. And now, says Paul, the incredible thing is that we can address God by the same name that Jesus used. Jesus revealing the name Abba is an invitation to have confidence in God’s love for us. God does not come to judge us or to punish us. God does not withhold his blessing from anyone. God’s blessing is the knowledge that in Jesus, God has entered into the struggles and suffering of human life to open up the possibility of new life for us. To know and accept this blessing is to be identified as Christians, daughters and sons of God, a people of love and forgiveness.

Someone who bears the name of Christ, and who does not want to take the Lord’s name in vain, must have clear priorities in life, which is fitting as we enter a new year. I propose three resolutions.

First, affirm our identity as Christians. This begins by accepting God’s unconditional love for us. If something happened in 2025, maybe it was not your proudest year, maybe you felt far from grace, accept God’s love and forgiveness for you.

Second, resolve to move beyond a minimum-requirements approach to the spiritual life. Seek first the Kingdom of God. This year, find ways to nourish your soul. If you like to read, pick up spiritual books. If you enjoy watching series, begin with faith-filled content, watch David, the new animated film, with your family, or The Chosen. To bear the name of Christ means growing in our knowledge of the faith, and there are many ways to do that.

Third, Jesus says the greatest commandment of the Old Testament is “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but then he goes further and says, “I give you a new commandment, only one, to replace all the others: love one another as I have loved you.” The love of Jesus has the power to transform evil into good. He chose to love even when it was painful and difficult. If there are people in your life whom you struggle to love, make the choice to love them in Christ.

Let us make these our resolutions for the new year: to love ourselves as God loves us, to fill our souls with life-giving and faith-strengthening content, and to love others as Jesus has loved us.

Today we give thanks for the gift of Mary, Mother of God, from whom our blessing has come. Through her yes, we bear the name of Christ, and so I invoke God’s blessing: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.”